The Pirenne Thesis Analysis Criticism And Revision

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THE PIRENNE THESIS

Analysis,
Criticism,
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The Pirenne thesis

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THE
PIRENNE THESIS

Analysis, Criticism.,
and Revision

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

Alfred F. Havighurst, AMHERST COLLEGE

D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY BOSTON

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-12572

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Table of Contents

C. DEL1SLE BURNS

The First Europe i

M . RO STOVTS EFF

The Terms "Decay" and "Decline and Fall" 9

HENRI PIRENNE

from Medieval Cities 1 1

from Mohammed and Charlemagne 28

J. LESTOCQUOY

Origins of Medieval Civilization and the Problem of Continuity 43

H . ST. L. B. MOSS

Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions 48

NOR MAN H. BAYN ES

M. Pirenne and the Unity of the Mediterranean World 54

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

Mohammed and Charlemagne: A Revision 58

East and West in the Early Middle Ages 74

<3L(MQ.) PUBLIC UBRAKt

<^ 4 O M ~-f\ T ""**

s^JLJ J. U X

viii Table of Contents

LYNN WHITE, JR.

Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages 79

DANIEL C, DENNETT, JR.

Pirenne and Muhammad 84

ANNE RIISING

The Fate of Henri Pirenne's Theses on the Consequence of the

Islamic Expansion 1 02

Suggestions for Additional Reading 1 07

Introduction

DURING the past generation a sub-
stantial literature has accumu-
lated round one of the central problems of
European history the transition from the
ancient world to medieval civilization."
These words, the introductory sentence of
one of the selections in this problem, were
written twenty years ago, but the re-exam-
ination of the early Middle Ages, which
they suggest, has continued.

The older view gave isolated and per-
functory treatment to Byzantium and to
Islam and then turned wholeheartedly to
the West: the Merovingians and Clovis,
Charlemagne and the Carolingians, then
the stem duchies in Germany and the
Capetians in France, and the rest. The
Cambridge Medieval History (8 v., 1911-
1936), which brought together the scholar-
ship of distinguished medievalists in many f
lands, did recognize the importance of*
Eastern Europe but still treated the Byzan-
tine and Arab worlds quite apart from the
West, and the emphasis throughout re-
mained political and religious. Moreover,
its character was encyclopedic with no
interpretation integrating the enterprise as

/ a whole. The abridged version (1952) was
out of date at publication and it was then
observed that the appearance of this
Shorter Cambridge Medieval History prob-
ably marked the end of medieval history
written as past politics organized around
dynastic periods. For, under quite different
controlling assumptions, the story of the
early Middle Ages had long since been in

^ihe process of revision and by many of the
very historians who had contributed to the
conventional framework of the Cambridge
history. As new questions were asked the

materials of the past returned to life, yield-
ing greater knowledge and leading to new
understanding.

To force re-examination of established
ways of historical thinking requires power-
ful and original minds, and for the study of
the Middle Ages there have been many
such in the twentieth century: Ch, Diehl
(French), Norman H. Baynes (British),
A. A. Vasiliev (Russian and American),
among Byzantine scholars; Philip Hitti
(Lebanese and American) and E. Levy-
Provengal (French) on the Arabs and
Islam; Alfons Dopsch, brilliant medievalist
of Austria whose views made him a center
of controversy; Marc Bloch, a hero of the
French Resistance in World War II, who
was a pioneer in French rural history; and
so on. But if there was any one individual
whg L i ^i' f |>%^^^^'upset the tranquility of
the 'fflSttSiSs? wcod" and with whose name
is associated special prestige, it was Henri
Pirenne (1862-1935), celebrated national
historian of Belgium and long associated
with the university of Ghent. One encoun-
ters him wherever one turns in the histori-
cal writing of the past thirty years on the
early Middle Ages.

Put in the most general terms the ques-
tion which Pirenne faced, and which as a
consequenceVof his writing the whole of
medieval scholarship has confronted since,
is that of the relation of Roman Antiquity
to the medieval vwrld of the First Europe.
Some historians at least had been aware of
what they were doing when they divided
the story of western civilization into fee
Ancient World, "the Middle Ages> and
Modern Times. They realized of
that such artificial periodi^trat

IX

Introduction

essential continuity of human experience.
And it was well known that the very idea
of the Middle Ages was the historical crea-
tion of another "period," that of the Renais-
sance, when humanist writers, at pains to
identify their era with Antiquity, attributed
a uniqueness to the centuries between. Yet
repetition tends to influence thought. It
came to be taken for granted that the "An-
cient World" and the "Middle Ages" were
easily distinguished the one from the other,
and that a distinct break came in the fifth
century with the disappearance of the "Ro-
man" emperors in the West, the appearance
of Germanic "barbarian" kingdoms, and
the triumph of Christianity. These devel-
opments, with a slight accommodation,
could be treated as simultaneous and dram-
atized in a comparatively brief span of
years, and were considered sufficient to set
off one "period" of the past from another.
Such became the textbook point of view
and, with some qualifications, a controlling
assumption of scholars as well.

A quite radically different concept came
out of the investigations of Pirenne. He
concluded that the Roman world eco-
nomically, culturally, and even, in essence,
politically continued in all important par-
ticulars through the centuries of the Ger-
man invasions. It was rather the impact of
Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries
which, by destroying the unity of the Medi-
terranean, ended the Roman world and led
to a strikingly different civilization in the
Carolingian era. "Without Islam the Prank-
ish Empire would probably never have
existed and Charlemagne, without Moham-
met, would be inconceivable," he wrote in
a famous sentence.

His countrymen tell us that this idea
appeared in his lectures at Ghent as early
as 1910. It was first given published form
in articles in the Revue beige de Philologie
et d'Histoire, in 1922. Pirenne popularized
his concept the same year in a series of
lectures delivered in American universities
and published as Medieval Cities, in 1925.
At the Sixth International Congress of His-
torical Sciences at Oslo in 1928, Pirenne

read a paper on "L'expansion d'Islam et le
commencement du moyen ge." A pro-
longed and animated discussion ensued
French, German, Polish, Italian, Dutch, and
Hungarian scholars participating. Pirenne's
views were amplified and documented in
Mahomet et Charlemagne, finished in man-
uscript form only a few months before his
death in 1935 and, unfortunately, never
subject to a final revision by him. This work,
published in 1937 and translated into Eng-
lish in 1939, brings'together all of Pirenne's
research on this theme^But Medieval Cities
had long since given wkl x e circulation to
the "Pirenne Thesis/' "No volume dLsimi-
lar size," wrote Professor Gray C. Boyce in
1941, "has so affected medieval historical
scholarship in marry generations." 1 X

For economic historians of western Eu-
rope, Pirenne's views have had perhaps
special significance. But the impact has
been almost as great on Byzantine studies
(for Pirenne lengthened the essential unity
of the Roman Mediterranean world), upon
historians of Germany (for Pirenne rather
minimized the Germanic contribution to
European -development), upon historians
of Islam whose story now assumed greater
significance, and upon philosophers of his-
tory, such as Toynbee, especially concerned
with theories of change.

The issues raised by Pirenne may be
summarized as follows:

1. What developments distinguish Antiq-
uity from the Middle Ages? When do
we properly cease to speak of the Roman
world and begin to think in terms of the
First Europe?

2. What was the impact of Islam and the
Arabs upon the West, and what that of
the Germans?

3. What is the relation between the Mero-
vingian era (roughly 5th to 8th centu-
ries) and the Carolingian era (the 8th
and 9th centuries)? Do they present
essential continuity or are they in sharp
contrast?

i Byzantion, XV, 460, n. 25.

Introduction

4. What can Jiistorians say about trade and
industry-m the West, 400-1000?

It is to Pirenne's conclusions on these
matters, to the controversy which his views
precipitated and to the new vitality of early
medieval studies to which they so power-
fully contributed that the attention of the
student is directed in this problem.

Our selections begin with brief introduc-
tory statements, in fresh and vigorous form,
calculated to free the reader from any nec-
essary adherence to conventional attitudes
toward the period under consideration.
One is from "The Formation of the First
Europe," the opening chapter of a stimu-
lating treatment by C. Delisle Burns in his
The First Europe (1947). The other is an
evaluation of the words "decay" and "de-
cline" when used with reference to the
Roman Empire, from an article by M.
Rostovtzeff, one of the most important of
Roman historians of the twentieth century.

Pirenne's own exposition is best studied,
initially, in the popular and attractive
Medieval Cities. This is the book which for
well over a generation has made Pirenne's
name familiar to undergraduate students
of medieval history. Then from the more
technical and more complete Mohammed
and Charlemagne, we have his conclusions,
in summary form, on the significance of
the German invasions of Rome, a brief
statement of the nature of the Islamic inva-
sion of the Mediterranean and the West,
and then a more elaborate examination of
"Poetical Organization" and "Intellectual
Civilization" in the Merovingian and
Carolingian periods.

The remaining selections consisting of
discussion and criticism of the "Pirenne
Thesis" are chosen from a large body of
commentary available. Some noted names
are included, and from various national
backgrounds. A French historian, J. Les-
tocquoy of Arras, examines the economy of
the tenth century to determine if it will
support Pirenne. From Professor Norman
H. Baynes, an eminent British scholar in

Byzantine studies, and from one of his asso-
ciates, H. St. L. B. Moss, we have forth-
right criticism. An American scholar now
at Yale, Professor Robert S. Lopez, who has
undertaken research in one of the most
difficult of fields medieval economic his-
tory makes a thorough analysis of the evi-
dence. One of these extracts is from a paper
read at the Tenth International Congress
of Historical Sciences convening in Rome
in 1955.

The writings of Pirenne have done much
to stimulate research in directions quite
different from those of his own investiga-
tions. Early medieval currencies, for exam-
ple, is now a very active field of investiga-
tion. And consideration of the shift of
civilization from the Mediterranean to
northern Europe led Lynn White, Jr. to
examine technological development. His
article, "Technology and Invention in the
Middle Ages," illustrates the extent to
which Pirenne helped rescue historical
scholarship from rather narrow and paro-
chial concerns. From Daniel C. Dennett, Jr.
we have an analysis of "Pirenne and Mu-
hammad," by a specialist in Islamic history.
And finally from a Danish scholar, Anne
Riising, we have in her article, "The Fate
of Henri Pirenne's Theses," an up-to-date
consideration of the whole problem in the
light of historical commentary of the past
twenty-five years.

All together, these extracts present in
sufficient detail for fairly close study the
essentials of the "Pirenne Thesis." They
also provide evidence and ideas against
which to test its validity. Where does the
matter now stand? ^Rather clearly Pirenne
has left a permanent imprint upon medi-
eval studies. Nearly every historian thinks
differently because of him. And his central
contribution, it would be generally agreed,
has been this: to emancipate medieval
historians in western Europe and in the
United States from historical interests too
exclusively political, legal, and religions in
nature; to gain recognition of the impor-
tance of Islam and of the role of Byzantium

xu

Introduction

in the story of western civilization; and to
make historians more aware of the limits
of understanding and the errors in inter-
pretation which follow from easy periodiza-
tion of European history/" Nothing is better
proof of Pirenne's/ brilliant eloquence,"
writes Anne Riising, "than the fact that he
has been able to impose his own formula-
tion of the problems upon even his oppo-
nents." 2

Yet, in particulars, research has generally
refuted Pirenne. This in itself would not
disturb him for he had no notion that he
had entire historical truth. In 1932, as he
finished the seventh and final volume of
his great Histoire de Belgique, he insisted
upon the value of works of historical synthe-
sis which would suggest fresh hypotheses,
establish new connections and pose different
problems. At the same time he frankly ad-
mitted that any synthesis was necessarily
provisional "The materials [of history] can

2 "The Fate of Henri Pirenne's Theses," Classica
et Mediaevalia, XIII (1952), p. BO.

never all be collected, for they can never be
known. Problems cannot all be solved, for,
as they are solved, new aspects are perpetu-
ally revealed. The historian opens the way;
he does not close it." 3

[NOTE :The statements in the Conflict of Opinion
on page xv are from the following sources: Charles
Oman, The Dark Ages, 476-918 (1898), pp. 3, 5;
Michael Postan, ^Cambridge Economic History
of Europe, vol. H (1952), p. 157;_R. S. Lopez,
Relazioni del X Congresso Internazionale di
Scienze Storiche, vol. Ill, p. 129; Henri Pirenne,
Mohammed and Charlemagne, p. 284, and Medi-
eval Cities, p. 27; J. Lestocquoy, "The Tenth
Century," Economic History Review, vol. XVII
(1947), p. 1; Alfons Dopsch, quoted by H. St. L.
B. Moss, Economic History Review, vol. VII
(1936-1937), p. 214; R. S. Lopez, Relazioni del
X Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche,
vol. Ill, p. 130; Norman H. Baynes, Byzantine
Studies and other Essays (1955), pp. 315, 316;
Lynn White, Jr., "Technology and Invention in
the Middle Ages," Speculum, vol. XV (1940),
pp. 152-153; Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., "Pirenne
and Muhammad," Speculum, vol. XXIII (April
1948), pp. 168, 189-190.]

3 As paraphrased hy F. M. Powicke, Modern His-
torians and the Study of History (London, 1955),
p. 104.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Empire

A.D. 284-305 DIOCLETIAN, Roman Emperor

306-337 CONSTANTINE I (THE GREAT), Roman Emperor

330 Byzantium rebuilt as Constantinople

379-395 THEODOSIUS I (THE GREAT), Roman Emperor

395 Permanent division of Empire, East and West

474-491 ZENO, East Roman Emperor

527-565 JUSTINIAN, East Roman Emperor

610-641 HERACLIUS I, East Roman Emperor

71 7 741 LEO III (THE ISAURIAN), East Roman Emperor

Germania

ca. 370 Pressure of Huns on Goths in Eastern Europe

378 Battle of Adrianople; Visigoths defeat Romans

395 Huns (ATTILA) on the Danube

451 Final Defeat of Huns at Chalons (Champagne')

395-408 Visigothic Revolt (ALARIC) against Eastern Empire

4 1 Visigothic "Sack of Rome'

ca. 400-600 Visigothic Kingdom in Southern Gaul and Spain

(Continues in Spain until 7 1 1 )

ca. 420 Beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Invasions of Britain

ca. 400-430 Franks, Burgundians, Vandals cross the Rhine into Gaul
ca. 400600 Burgundian Kingdom in Rhone Valley

(Absorbed by Franks, end of 6th century)
ca. 429-534 Vandal Kingdom in North Africa
(Reconquered lay JUSTINIAN)

- 455 Vandals (GAISERIC) plunder Rome

ca. 400-751 Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks in Gaul
48 1-5 1 1 CLOVIS, Merovingian King of the Franks
538594 GREGORY, Bishop of Tours (History of the Franks)
639-751 Rois Faineants, Merovingian Kingdom of Franks in Gaul

Romania

476 Deposition of ROMULUS AUGUSTUS, last Roman-bom Emperor of

West

476493 ODOACER, King of the Romans

489 THEODORIC leads Ostrogoths from Eastern Empire into Italy

493526 THEODORIC, Ostrogothic King of Italy (Ravenna')

ca. 480575 CASSIODORUS, Roman statesman and scholar

480-525 BOETHIUS, Roman statesman and philosopher

5 3 5-5 5 3 JUSTINIAN'S Reconqiiest (under BELISARIUS) of Africa f Italy, Sicily,

and portions of Spain

539751 Byzantine Exarchy in Ravenna
552 First appearance of Lombards (federated with Eastern Empire against

the Ostrogplhz)
568 Lombards conquer Po V alley

xm

xiv Chronological Table

Christianity

313 Edict of Milan, Toleration of Christianity

325 Council of Nicaea

354-430 SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

379 Death of ST. BASIL

440-461 LEO I (THE GREAT), Bishop of Rome ("Pope")

480-534 ST. BENEDICT

ca. 590 ST. COLUMBAN (IRISH) comes to Gaul

590-604 POPE GREGORY I (THE GREAT)

597 ST. AUGUSTINE (BENEDICTINE) lands in Britain

ca. 673-735 THE VENERABLE BEDE

ca. 675-754 ST. BONIFACE

Islam

ca. 570-632 MOHAMMED

632 Beginning of Caliphate (Asu BAKR)

634-644 OMAR CALIPH and Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt

661750 OMAYYAD Caliphate at Damascus

661-680 MUAWTYA, first Omayyad Caliph

68 5-705 ABDU-L-MALIK, Caliph

711 Islam reaches Spain

732 Battle of Tours

750-1258 ABBASID Caliphate at Bagdad

786-809 HARUN-AL-RASCHID, Caliph at Bagdad

Carolingian Prankish Kingdom

687-714 PEPIN OF HERISTAL, Mayor of the Palace

714-741 CHARLES MARTEL, Mayor of the Palace

741-768 PEPIN THE SHORT, Mayor of the Palace and (751) King of the

Pranks

751 Lombards take Ravenna

768-8 1 4 CHARLEMAGNE, King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, Emperor

of the Romans

782 ALCUIN OF YORK comes to Palace School at Aachen

800 Coronation of CHARLEMAGNE as Emperor

814-840 Louis THE Pious, Emperor

843 Peace of Verdun, beginning of breakup of Carolingian Empire

Conflict of Opinion

1. How was the world of antiquity which we call Roman transformed into
the medieval society which we call European? From the days of Edward
Gibbon to the early twentieth century, this question gave historians little
trouble.

If we must select any year as the dividing line between ancient history and
the Middle Ages, it is impossible to choose a better date than 476 [the year
in which the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by the
German Odoacer]. ... It is ... in every way correct, as well as convenient
to style him [Odoacer] as the first German king of Italy and to treat his reign
as the commencement of a new era.

CHARLES OMAN

With this conclusion, economic development seemed to provide no
difficulty.

Without careful examination, historians could take it more or less for granted
that the irruption of the barbarians meant a complete break with the economic
civilization of the Roman Empire.

MICHAEL POSTAN

2. However, twentieth century historians have submitted the role of the
Germans and the whole story of the transition to medieval society to
reappraisal.

Virtually nobody believes any more that the barbarian invasions of the fifth
century marked a sharp turn in economic history, although most historians
will admit that the meeting of German immaturity with Roman decrepitude
accelerated the process of disintegration whose first symptoms can be traced
as far back as the age of the Antonines.

R. S. LOPEZ

3. A brilliant contribution was made by Henri Pirenne, who put forth the
view that the Moslems, not the Germans, destroyed the Roman world.

The Germanic invasions destroyed neither the Mediterranean unity of the
ancient world, nor what may be regarded as the truly essential features of
Roman culture. . . . The cause of the break with the tradition of antiquity
was the rapid and unexpected advance of Islam.

Without Islam, the Prankish Empire would probably never have existed and
Charlemagne, without Mahomet, would be inconceivable.

4. In more general terms Pirenne opened up a much larger question. Can-
not much of the complexity of the transition from the Roman World to
the Medieval World be understood through an analysis of economic
change? Hence, it was essential to establish the relationship between the
well-known Carolingian period (broadly the eighth and ninth centuries)
and that which came before and that which followed. This is in itself a
matter of some controversy.

xv

xvi Conflict of Opinion

The view which is at present the most widely accepted is that of Henri Pirenne.
According to him, medieval civilization began to take shape at the end of the
tenth century after the Viking and the Hungarian invasions had ceased. The
end of the ancient world had come much earlier [with] the triumph of Islam
. . . and the Carolingian period was one of full decline.

J. LESTOCQUOY

The Carolingian development is a link in the unbroken chain of living con-
tinuity which leads, without any cultural break, from the late antiquity to
the German middle ages.

ALFONS DOPSCH

5. However, the ideas of both Pirenne and Dopsch have been sharply
questioned.

Henri Pirenne made the Arabs squarely and directly responsible for pulling
an iron curtain which separated the Believers from the Infidels and left Europe
an economic and cultural dead end. His superb pleading and his personal
charm won many converts. Nevertheless, a large number of scholars . . . were
not convinced. For the last twenty years nearly all that has been written on
early medieval economic history has reflected the heat of the controversy on
"les theses d'Henri Pirenne."

R. S. LOPEZ

It is misleading to state that for the Franks of the sixth century, the Mediter-
ranean still remained "mare nostrum." . . . My own belief is that the unity of
the Mediterranean world was broken by the pirate fleet of Vandal Carthage
and that the shattered unity was never restored.

NORMAN H. BAYNES

Pirenne is only the most recent of many historians to speculate as to why the
reign of Charlemagne witnessed the shift of the center of European civiliza-
tion, the change of the focus of history, from the Mediterranean to the plains
of Northern Europe. The findings of agricultural history, it seems, have never
been applied to this central problem. . . . For obvious reasons of climate the
agricultural revolution of the eighth century was confined to Northern Europe.

LYNN WHITE, JR.

6. And in recent years, our increased knowledge suggests once again a fresh
appraisal.

We must affirm that ... [in no authoritative statements in Islam] is there any
prohibition against trading with the Christians or unbelievers, . . . Islam
was hostile to Christianity as a rival, not as a completely alien faith, and the
Muslims were invariably more tolerant than the Christians.

The man whether he be a Pirenne or a Dopsch who attempts to under-
stand and to interpret either the Merovingian or Carolingian period in terms
purely of an economic interpretation of history will be certain to fail, for the
simple reason that economic factors play a subsidiary role and present merely
aspects in the great causative process,

DANTEL C. DENNETT, JR.

THE FIRST EUROPE

C. DELIS LE BU RNS

Cecil Delisle Burns (18791942) had a varied and Interesting career
as an official in the British Ministry of Reconstruction created during
World War I, as a party official in the Joint Research Department of
the British Labor Party and Trades Union Congress, as an officer in the
Labor Office of the League of Nations, and as a lecturer in Ethics and
Social Philosophy In the University of London. His interests, as a writer,
were in a sense equally diverse, for he ranged over all periods of history.
But his books had a common theme that of the relation of force and
moral authority during periods of social transition. It is this theme which
dominates The First Europe, the book from which a brief selection
follows.

TE FIKST Europe came into existence
during the four hundred years from
the beginning of the fifth century to the
end of the eighth century of the Christian
era. It included, geographically, the coun-
tries now known as France, England, Ire-
land and southern Scotland, western Ger-
many, central and northern Italy and
northern Spain. Its peoples spoke Ger-
manic languages in the North and East,
and variations of Latin in the South and
West AThey were socially united in a Chris-
tendonTwhich excluded the older eastern
forms of ChristianityTJbut they were di-
vided by local lordships. This First Europe
was, indeed, dependent in its earlier years
upon the older cultures of the Mediter-
ranean, which had produced finally the
Roman Empire; but it was a new type of
civilization. Thus, the word Europe be-
came, after the collapse of the Roman Em-
pire in the West, more than a geographical
expression; and it was used in the new
sense for the first time in the ninth cen-
tury, for example, by Nithard the ninth-
century historian, when he wrote that

Charles the Great at his death "had left all
Europe in the greatest happiness." Europe
is thus distinguished, not only from other
lands, but from the tradition of the Greek-
speaking Churches and Empire, and from
Islam. From that time Europe was "the
West" not merely a different place but a
different spirit.

The Roman Empire had never been
European or Western, in the modern sense
of these words. It had always united the
countries surrounding the eastern Mediter-
ranean, from which it drew its chief wealth,
with the less developed countries of the
West, including northern Gaul and Britain,
And when, at the beginning of the fourth
century, first Diocletian and then Constan-
tine removed the central administration
from Rome eastwards, it had become ob-
vious to Roman generals and lawyers, as
well as to the adherents of Christianity,
that the real centre of the Empire lay at
the junction of Asia and Europe. The
Roman Empire was based upon the control
of the trade routes in the basin of the Medi-
terranean. It inherited the conquests of the

From C. Delisle Burns, The First Euro}
AD. 400-800 (London; 1947), pp. 23-3

ei A Study of the Establishment of Medieval
6. By pennissioii of George Alleia & UnwinL&fc

C. DELISLE BURNS

Greek successors of Alexander in Egypt,
Syria and Asia Minor. And although it
had also succeeded to the conquests of the '
Roman Republic in the West, these were
of less importance, three centuries after
Augustus, than the rich and populous cities
of what is now called the "Near East."

The civilization of the First Europe was
quite distinct from the Roman. It did not
depend upon the Mediterranean. It was
the creation of the Latin Churches, and not
of any one military or civil power. Its intel-
lectual centres were in northern France,
the Rhine country, England and northern ,
Italy. Its architecture and other plastic arts \
were original experiments to meet new
needs. Its music came out of popular songs.
Its organizations of a learned caste, the
clergy, of monasteries and of the universi-
ties which were later established, w r ere new
social inventions. Thus, the First Europe
of the so-called Middle Ages, was an origi-
nal experiment in new ways of living and
thinking. Medieval civilization was more
primitive than the Roman in externals, be-
cause it lacked, for example, baths and
roads; and in culture it was more primitive,
because it lacked that natural intercourse
between educated men and women, which
existed in the Roman villas and city man-
sions. But in other aspects it was an ad-
vance upon Mediterranean civilization; for
example, in its moral and religious ideals,
in its community of feeling between the
rich and the poor and in its widespread
sense of social responsibility. If character
and conduct in different ages are to be
compared, St. Francis was not more civil-
ized than Seneca, but he had wider and
more subtle sympathies; and Abelard,
Aquinas and Occam were better thinkers
than Cicero and Pliny, although their ob-
servation and experience were more limited.
The greater philosophers of ancient Athens
cannot be supposed to add credit to the
Roman Empire, the culture and social or-
ganization of which retained few traces of
their teaching in the fifth century of the
Christian era. To avoid misunderstanding,
therefore, it should be clearly stated that

medieval civilization is regarded here as
only a first stage in the development of a
pattern of culture, whose later forms were
the second Europe of the sixteenth to nine-
teenth centuries, and the third Europe now
being established. To compare the Roman
system at its best under the Antonines, or
in its later years under Constantine or
Theodosius the Great, with the First Eu-
rope in the days of Charles the Great, is
like comparing a great river, losing itself in
the sands at the end of its course, with a
mountain torrent from which a still greater
stream arises. Or again, to change the meta-
phor, the early history of the First Europe
treats of the roots of that great tree which
has now expanded into modern science,
modern music and arts, and modern skill
in government. But the roots of that tree,
if exposed to the light of history, may not
appear so attractive as the latest faded flow-
ers of Greek and Roman culture.

Although medieval civilization, through-
out its whole course until the Renaissance,
and certainly in its first years, was more
primitive than the Roman, its roots struck
far deeper among all classes of the com-
munity; and it contained forces much more
powerful than the Roman Empire had ever
included. The doctrine and practice of the
Christian Churches, based upon the belief
that each human being had an immortal
soul to be saved, and that all were in some
sense equal as Christians this was one of
the most important influences in the forma-
tion of what is now known as democracy.
Democracy as an ideal means a social sys-
tem of liberty, equality and fraternity for
all men, and not a system in which a few
share freedom among themselves in order
the better to control the rest. And democ-
racy as a system of government, by which
the ideal may be approached, means at feast
some control by the "plain people" over
their rulers and agents and some right of
public discussion concerning public policy.
But even in this sense, the sources of some
elements in the democratic tradition of to-
day are to be found in the election of
bishops in the earliest Christian Churches

The First Europe

and in the meeting of bishops as repre-
sentatives in Synods, rather than in an-
cient Athens or Rome.

The word "democracy" in Greek did not
refer to slaves and women as members of
the political community, although, as in
the case of cattle, their owners and masters
might care for them. On the other hand,
the Athenians developed and the Roman
Republic preserved the power to criticize
and remove public authorities and the free
discussion of public policy by all citizens.
But neither criticism nor discussion sur-
vived in the Christian Churches; and the
democracy of early Christianity had passed,
before the fifth century, into a form of des-
potism under the control of the bishops and
clergy. The democratic tendency of Chris-
tianity in medieval Europe survived only in
the sacraments and ceremonies, which were
equally shared by all, and in early Chris-
tian documents which served at times to
support protests against despotism, political
or clerical. Nevertheless, democracy in the
modern sense of that word, did in fact arise
within the Christian tradition and not else-
where. Medieval civilization was also the
source of the great European literatures
and of modern European music and plastic
arts. Even modern experimental science
can be traced to the practices of magic, both
sacred and secular, in the Middle Ages.
But in social institutions the early years of
the First Europe were still more important
^for the future. At that time the system of
nation-States had its origin in the barbarian
kingdoms which replaced the Roman prov-
inces in the West. The Roman organiza-
tion of Christian communities spread from
Italy and Gaul into England, Ireland and
Germany. The great monastic system of the
West was established; and pilgrimage con-
nected the common people of all Europe.
These are the roots of the First Europe. . . .

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN A.D. 400
AND A.D. 800

Of the most obvious institutions in A.D.
400 the Roman Empire is the best known.
It was one system of government which

included all the lands from northern Brit-
ain to the borders of Iraq, and from the
Rhine and Danube to the Sahara. In A.D.
800, on the other hand, the same institu-
tion, still called the Roman Empire, in-
cluded only part of the Balkan peninsula
and of Turkey, within easy reach of its
capital at Constantinople. But in western
Europe separate kingdoms under Germanic
chieftains were established in Gaul, then
called western France, and Germany, then
called eastern France, in Italy, in England
and in northern Spain.^The most striking
feature of the change is the localization of
government. Many different and independ-
ent centres of power and authority had
taken the place of one; although all these
countries were felt to be united against the
outer world, as Latin Christendom. Africa
north of the Sahara and southern Spain
were ruled by Mohammedan Caliphs. In
the East were unknown tribes; and in the
West, the Ocean.

In A.D. 400 the Roman Emperors, who
were Christian and Catholic, were legis-
lating on doctrine and Church discipline,
with the advice of bishops, who were them-
selves largely under the control of imperial
officials. But by A.D. 800 there was an im-
perial Church, outside the surviving Roman
Empire in the East, subject to the bishops
of Rome, legislating for itself, and some-
times using the power of local kings for
civil as well as ecclesiastical organization.
A large part of western Europe was united
again, but now by the organization of the
Latin Churches, which had lost contact
with the Christianity of the eastern Medi-
terranean. Less obvious, but more impor-
tant than the great changes in political and
ecclesiastical institutions, was the change in
the system of production and distribution.
In A.D. 400 the Roman Empire depended
upon the organization of great cities
Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Car-
thage, Aries and the rest, whose popula-
tions obtained food and clothing from dis-
tant sources of supply. There was a trade
slaves, food-stuffs and raw materials

n

throughout the Mediterranean basin, ex-

C. DELISLE BURNS

tending also to the Rhine country, northern
Gaul and Britain. A cultured, city-bred,
rich class provided administrators for a
single system of economic customs and
political laws. By A.D. 800 all this had dis-
appeared from western Europe. The great
Roman cities were in ruins; and their di-
minished populations continually suffered
from plague, famine or the raids of armed
gangs. Trade between the East and the
West of the Mediterranean basin had al-
most come to an end. The slave-trade
hardly existed; and neither ships nor road
traffic were able to carry raw materials and
foodstuffs for long distances. Distribution,
therefore, had become local. It was organ-
ized by local landowners, controlling serfs
tied to the soil, but possessed of customary
rights. The ruling class, except for a few of
the higher clergy, consisted of ignorant,
illiterate, country-bred "sportsmen," whose
chief enjoyment, when not killing or rob-
bing their neighbours, was hunting game
in the forests. In the four centuries that
followed the fifth, a great process of de-
urbanization was taking place. The popu-
lation was more evenly spread over the
whole area of north-western Europe. Thus,
medieval Europe was embodied in the
primitive castles and the abbeys and not, at
any rate in its first phase, in the houses or
churches of merchants and craftsmen in
the towns.

Again, in A.D. 400 the centres of intel-
lectual activity, of the arts and of trade,
were the sea-ports of the Mediterranean
basin Constantinople, Alexandria, Car-
thage, Aries and Rome. By the ninth cen-
tury the centres of activity in the First
Europe lay in the North- West Paris,
Tours, Fulda, and, in later years, Antwerp
and London. Thus the geographical setting
for the new type of civilized life lay in
countries on the border of the great ocean,
which proved eventually to be, not the
limit of the earth, but the pathway to a
new world. Finally in A.D. 400 Christianity
was a proselytizing religion, fighting long-
established customs and beliefs of many
^lifferent types; and Christianity itself, even

among the more simple-minded western
races, w T as divided into different sects
Arians, Donatists, Priscillianists and others.
It was organized in local congregations or
Churches, each independent of the other,
but connected by a common literature and
ritual, and by the Councils of bishops.
Later, in A.D. 800, in western Europe Chris-
tianity had become Christendom. Every-
one was assumed to be Christian and Cath-
olic. The Latin Churches of the West had
coalesced into one imperial Church con-
trolled by a separate caste of clergy, monks
and nuns, most of them celibates, under the
government, at least in theory, of the
bishops of Rome.

ROMANS AND GERMANS

The contrast between A.D. 400 and A.D.
800 is startling. What is here attempted is
to explain how and why the change oc-
curred. In its earliest stages the change
may be regarded as due to a conflict be-
tween a particular type of civilization and
a particular type of barbarism. It is assumed
in what follows that the "pattern of cul-
ture" called the Greek-Roman civilization,
embodied in the late Roman Empire, was
only one of many possible forms of civil-
ized life. Not civilization in general, but
only Roman civilization was in question in
the fifth century, although most of the
writers of that time thought of their own
tradition as civilization itself. In the same
way, some writers and speakers of to-day
who lament the danger to "civilization,"
fail to perceive that an earlier pattern of
culture may be replaced by a better. The
Roman system was the last of the great
predatory Empires based upon slavery; but
it brought unity and extended culture
throughout the countries in the basin of
the Mediterranean. Its best products were
regarded by eighteenth-century historians
as standards for all civilized men; and they
were therefore unable to understand or
appreciate the new forms of civilization
which took its place. But they were not
wrong in supposing that any form of civil-
ized life is better than any barbarism, al-

The First Europe

though it is always difficult to distinguish

the

first signs of a new civilization from

the barbarism by which it is surrounded.

This book is concerned with the transi-
tion from one type of civilization, the Ro-
man, to another the European. Any form
of civilization is a complex of social rela-
tionships, more varied and more intricate
than those of barbarism. Among civilized

o

men and women opinions and tastes differ,
and social customs are continually adjusted
by individual experiment. Occupations are
differentiated in what is called the division
of labour, and the political and economic
"interests" of the members of any com-
munity, and of different communities, are
different and interdependent. In barbar-
ism, on the other hand, all the members of
the community are as far as possible alike
in opinions, tastes, occupations and inter-
ests. Society is homogeneous. Established
custom and belief control daily life and
prevent variation. One man, or one caste
of magicians or lords, provides the rules for
thought and action. And therefore even in
civilized communities the simplicity of bar-
barism has an attraction for minds weak-
ened by personal distress or confused by
social unrest, as it had for the Cynics in
ancient Greece and the hermits of the third
and fourth centuries of the Christian era.

Although civilization and barbarism are
face to face, the chief purpose of our dis-
cussion is to show, not how an old civiliza-
tion disappeared, but how a new civiliza-
tion arose. Social relations change when a
child becomes a man, when acquaintances
become husband and wife, or when lovers
use telephones instead of writing. When
such changes occur, it is misleading to
think of them as a decay or decline of an
earlier system. It would be absurd to treat
a change in social custom, such as the
wearing of trousers instead of tunics in the
fifth century, as a decay or decline of any-
thing whatever. Biological metaphors ap-
plied to types of civilization or patterns of
culture misrepresent the facts. Indeed, in
times of social transition there is greater
vitality among ordinary men and women

than at other times, precisely because the
displacement of ancient customs compels
them to think and act for themselves.
Again, the transition from a long-estab-
lished social system to the crude beginning
of a new Order, must not be rendered in
terms of good and bad. French is not bad
Latin. But from the fifth to the ninth cen-
tury, when the transition from Latin to
French was taking place, the finer qualities
of the new language were not so easily
perceived, especially by the educated, as
the mummified elegance of the Latin of
the vanished past. As in the history of lan-
guage, so in that of the plastic arts, the
splendid temples of ancient Rome were
more magnificent than the Christian basili-
cas of the fourth century and their mosaic
decoration. But in the study of the transi-
tion to a new type of civilization it is neces-
sary to foresee in the colours of the mosaics
the future development of the decoration
of the Christian Churches in the glass of
the cathedrals of Chartres and of York.
Thus, the transition from the Roman sys-
tem of civilization must not be regarded
primarily as the spread of barbarism.

On the other hand, the barbarism by
which the Roman system was faced in the
fifth century, was not barbarism in general,
but a particular form of it. It was the bar-
barism of the Gothic and Germanic tribes
introduced at first into the heart of the
Roman world as its defenders. Historians
of the nineteenth century, however, were
as mistaken in their estimate of Germanic
barbarism as their predecessors had been in
their view of Roman culture. By the later
historians, the Germanic barbarians were
taken to be pure-souled, loyal and valiant
supplanters of an effete social and political
system. This astonishing mistake was, no
doubt, partly due to a misunderstanding
of the prejudices of the Christian Fathers,
partly to the Romantic Movement, but
chiefly to the uncontrolled imagination of
sedentary scholars. As it is clear from con-
temporary records, the Germanic barbari-
ans, with a few noble exceptions, were
drunken, lecherous, cowardly and quite tin--

C. DELISLE BURNS

trustworthy, even among those for whom
they professed friendship. They did not
indeed suffer from such vices of luxury as
may be due to fine clothes, baths and good
cooking. Simplicity has its attractions, even
when, as Sidonius Apollinaris says, it
stinks. 1 But the Vandals in Africa in the
fifth century showed that the so-called vir-
tues of barbarians were largely due to their
ignorance of the more subtle tastes of civil-
ized men. And it is an absurdity to treat
Theodoric the Ostrogoth or Clovis the
Frank as examples of nobility or valour.
The first, with his own hand, killed his
guest; the second split open the skull of a
subordinate, when his back was turned.
These men were savages. But the particu-
lar form of barbarism which can be con-
trasted with the Roman type of civilization
in the fifth century, was certainly Ger-
manic. A great German historian has said
that "the process of barbarization of the
Roman Empire was a process of Germani-
zation/' 2 The barbarism, therefore, with
w r hich this book is concerned, is not bar-
barism in general, but only one tvpe of it.

O ' > *

In very general terms, the characteristics
of Roman civilization and of Germanic
barbarism may be described as follows.
Under the Roman system the relations be-
tween men, women and children were
complicated and various. A long-established
system of slavery had been somewhat modi-
fied, under Stoic and Christian influence,
to the advantage of the slaves. But the
sla\ r e population was large; and even sol-
diers had slaves. Legal rights of ownership,
marriage, inheritance and trade were clearly
defined; and an official administration made
them effectual. The mechanisms of pro-
duction and transport were well developed.
Public buildings and aqueducts still remain
to prove the existence of applied sciences
of which barbarians are ignorant. The
minor arts of clothing and the preparation

1 Felicemque libet vocare nasum, etc. (Carm. xxii.
13). "Happy the nose which cannot smell a bar-
barian." Tins was written about A.D. 455 in Gaul.

2 Mommsen, Romische Geschichte (1885), Part
v, bk. viii, en. 4.

of food were carried on in a characteristic
form, as it is still evident in the Roman
dress of the fifth century, which has served
as a model for ecclesiastical costume and
vestments surviving into modern times.
The fine arts in the fifth century were
superficial and derivative. Writers lived
upon the pages of other writers, long since
dead; and artists in the plastic arts spent
their energies upon ornament rather than
structure and function. But the fine arts
had a recognized place in society.

Germanic barbarism, on the other hand,
was the common characteristic of a number
of disconnected small tribes, speaking dia-
lects hardly yet developed into languages.
Each of these tribes was as much, if not
more, hostile to its neighbours than to the
Roman Empire. The young men of these
tribes, with some camp-followers, eagerly
left the tribal settlements to seek booty or
service in war under Roman commanders.
They were simple folk, without any skill
in agriculture, building or other useful arts,
whose social relationships, as expressed in
their legal customs, were troubled chiefly
by personal violence, murder and stealing.
That is to say, they were in that situation
which sociologists describe as a transition
from the pastoral to the agricultural stage
of social development. In their entertain-
ments and their religion, some customs and
beliefs survived from a still earlier stage of
^ocial development that of the hunters.
Thus, even when the barbarians had en-
tered into territories hitherto Roman, they
preserved the pleasures of the chase and
their belief in the magic of woods and
sacred places. The members of a small bar-
barian community were, no doubt, more
closely united in the simplicity of their
\minds, and in loyalty to their chieftains,
than were the men and women of the more
complex Roman city life. This may have
been the basis of the idea of romantic his-
torians that loyalty and honour were bar-
barian virtues. But any barbarian com-
munity faced two dangers. First, if it took
service under one Roman general, it might
be reduced to slavery by the victory of

The First Europe

another; and, secondly, if It remained out-
side the Roman frontiers, it might suffer
from the slave-raids which had been essen-
tial for many centuries before the fifth in
order to supply the Roman world with
cheap labour. No doubt, this is the basis
for the idea that Germanic barbarians stood
for "freedom." Tacitus wrote in the second
century a brilliant political pamphlet on
the "noble savage," the Germania. This at-
tack upon the political opponents of Taci-
tus in Rome has been used, even in modern
times, as evidence of the situation among
the German tribes three hundred years after
Tacitus wrote. But the Germanic barbari-
ans were, like other barbarians, entangled
in continually changing social situations,
with their own defects and advantages. The
same situations existed, in the main, among
non-Germanic barbarians of the North,
with whom the Roman populations came
into contact the Huns, the Avars, and the
Slavs; but no Tacitus has made political
capital out of these savages. Neither Ger-
man nor other barbarians in the second or
in the fifth century can be used by a mod-
ern historian as models of morality, with
which to contrast the decadence of the
Roman upper class. But the very simplicity
of the barbarian mind in a barbarian so-
ciety has its uses, if a new step is to be
made in the history of civilized life. At
least a futile culture will be brought down
to common earth.

The barbarian warriors and the tribes
from which they came, were not opposed
to Roman civilization, and certainly did not
mean to destroy it. Indeed, they asked
nothing better than to be allowed to share
in its products food, wealth, security and
more refined pleasures. Barbarian warriors
sought pay or booty; and in the later fifth
century discovered that they could obtain
more wealth by settling among a civilized
population than by looting and moving
from place to place. There were barbarian
settlements within the Roman frontiers,
and thousands of Germanic slaves there,
before there were barbarian invasions. But
even the barbarians who invaded Italy and

Gaul did not attempt to destroy the Roman
social system or the Roman Empire which
maintained it. They desired only to plunder
a building which was already falling into
ruins. And on the other hand, the policy
of the later Roman Emperors was that
called "appeasement" in modern times. For
example, the Visigoths and Burgundians
were granted leave to retain their conquests,
in the hope that they would not take any
more. The Vandals were invited into Africa
by a Roman General. The Ostrogoths, un-
der Theodoric, conquered Italy with the
acquiescence and perhaps the approval of
the Roman Emperor at Constantinople. It
is probably true, as was supposed at the
time, that the Lombards entered Italy at the
request of a Roman Exarch. And after
"appeasement" had allowed the establish-
ment of barbarian kingdoms in Gaul, Spain,
Africa and Italy, Justinian's attempt in the
sixth century to adopt the opposite policy
proved to be quite futile. It came too late
to save the Roman provinces in the West.
From the point of view of the governing
class in the Roman Empire, there was no
hostility to the Germanic barbarians. The
Emperors and the Roman generals desired
to use them. They welcomed them as sol-
diers, and found them useful and also deco-
rative as slaves. The imperial Authorities,
in fear of civil war, had forbidden men of
senatorial rank to join the army, and were
not eager to recruit the legions from the
city populations, which had various other
duties to perform in industry and transport.
In consequence the majority of the Roman-
ized city and country population in western
Europe was demilitarized; and the best re-
cruits for the armed forces were found
among the barbarian tribes. Thus, in the
fifth century, the word "soldier" (miles)
was equivalent in meaning to the word
"barbarian" (barbarus). The situation thus
created may be regarded as an attempt to
civilize the barbarians, by using them for
the only services for which they were com-
petent within the Roman system. But to
the minds of men of the fifth century, to
civilize meant to Romanize; and the bar-

C. DELISLE BURNS

barians themselves accepted this idea. The
result was obvious. While it became more
doubtful in what institution or persons
moral authority was to be found, clearly
armed force, and the wealth and power
which it could obtain, fell more completely
into the hands of the barbarians as the
years went by. The barbarians were not
only soldiers of the line and cavalry, but

fenerals and even Emperors. The Emperor
ustin, the uncle of the great Justinian,
could neither read nor write. Here again,
then, it must be repeated that the problem
was not that of civilization in general, but
of the Roman form of it. A similar problem
in the modern world exists in Africa. Euro-
peans desire to civilize the Africans; and
the Africans desire to be civilized. But be-
cause both assume that the only form of
civilization in question is the European,
Europeans attempt to Europeanize the
Africans. Some Europeans believe that
Africans can be used only as cheap labour,
exactly as Romans of the fifth century be-

lieved that Germanic barbarians could be
useful only as slaves or soldiers. And, on
the other hand, some Africans, in their at-
tempt to escape from the pastoral and agri-
cultural stages of social development into
what they believe to be civilization, have
contrived to become Europeanized. The
result is satisfactory neither to Africans nor
Europeans. As in the fifth century in west-
ern Europe, a particular type of civilization
has not proved flexible enough to meet new
strains and pressures. The Roman crisis has
come to an end; and that in modern Africa
has hardly begun. But it is still possible
that modern European civilization will be
more successful than the Roman in adapt-
ing itself to new experiences and alien
influences. From this point of view, the
Middle Ages were centuries during which,
after the failure to adjust the Roman sys-
tem to the play of new forces, these forces
built up a new kind of civilized life and
culture in its first form. . . .

The Terms "DECAY" and "DECLINE AND FALL"

M. ROSTOVTSEFF

M. Rostovtseff (18701952) was already well known as a classicist at
St. Petersburg in his native Russia before he came to the United States
in 1920. He was professor of ancient history at Wisconsin until !925
and subsequently professor of ancient history and archaeology at Yale
until his retirement in 1944. The last few years he was also Director of
Archaeological Studies and was In charge of the work at Dura near
ancient Babylon. As a scholar and as a teacher he ranks among the most
important ancient historians of the twentieth century. His honors were
many, including the presidency of the American Historical Association
in 1935. His greatest contribution was made as an economic historian
of the ancient world; his most important works were Social and Economic
History of the Roman Empire (1926) and Social and. Economic History
of the Hellenistic World, 3 vols. (194!). The extract below is from a
scholarly article in which he discussed various economic explanations for
the age-old question of the decline of Rome.

LME DEFINE briefly what I mean
by the Gibbonian term "decay" or
"decline and fall" We are learning gradu-
ally that the term "decay" can hardly be
applied to what happened in the ancient
world in the time of the late Roman Empire
and the beginning of the so-called Middle
Ages. Historians do not recognize that there
was anything like "decay" of civilization in
these periods. What happened was a slow
and gradual change, a shifting of values in
the consciousness of men. What seemed to
be all-important to a Greek of the classical
or Hellenistic period, or to an educated
Roman of the time of the Republic and of
the Early Empire, was no longer regarded
as vital by the majority of men who lived
in the late Roman Empire and the Early
Middle Ages. They had their own notion
of what was important, and most of what
was essential in the classical period among
the constituent parts of ancient civilization

was discarded by them as futile and often
detrimental. Since our point of view is
more or less that of the classical peoples,
we regard such an attitude of mind as a
relapse into barbarism," which in fact it
is not

Let me quote some striking examples.
I am not referring to the gradual disintegra-
tion of the Roman Empire. Politically it
might be called the "Fall" of the Roman
Empire that is, of that form of govern-
ment which had for some centuries united
almost the whole of the civilized world into
one state. Whether the creation of the
Roman Empire in itself was a blessing for
the human race is a question under debate.
Many prominent historians think that it
was more or less of a calamity. It is still
more problematic whether the disintegra-
tion of the Roman Empire was detrimental
for the world or not. Without this disinte-
gration we should not have, among other

From M. Rostovtseff, "The Decay of the Ancient World and Its Economic Explanations," The Eco-
nomic History Review, II (January, 1930), 197-199. By permission of Mrs. Sophie Rostovtseff and
The Economic History Review.

10

M. ROSTOVTSEFF

things, . . . the great national states of to-day
(if not of to-morrow). From the point of
view of "ancient" civilization the late
Roman Empire was no doubt a period of
great simplification barbarization as we
call it or, better, a period of the reduction
of ancient civilization to some essential
elements which survived while the rest
disappeared.

This process of disintegration and simpli-
fication is, however, only one aspect of the
phenomenon we are dealing with. While
the fabric of the ancient Roman Empire
was disintegrating, the Christian Church,
whose organization was more or less repro-
ducing that of the State, was thriving and
gaining in ecumenic powers. While philo-
sophical thought and scientific endeavours j
of the Greek type were gradually dying out,
theology took an unprecedented develop-
ment and satisfied the needs of the majority
of those who cared for intellectual life.
And in the field of art there was, in this
time of supposed decay, one triumph after
another>-We are gradually learning to
appreciate the originality and force of the
late Roman "pagan" art, and we have
already learned to admire the early products
of Christian art both in architecture and
in sculpture and especially in painting
(including the mosaics).

And, last but not least, while in the West

the heirs of ancient cities gave birth to fresh
and vigorous germs of a new civilization,
both different and similar if compared with
the old, in the East the same classical
civilization in its modified Christian aspect
was still alive and thriving, and in the long
period of its life experienced many tempo-
rary declines and many brilliant revivals.
Even in the West, not everything during
the centuries after the great crisis of the
third century was misery and ruin. The
fourth century witnessed a strong revival
both from the political and the economic
point of view, and this revival was not of
short duration.

Thus to apply to events in the ancient
world in the centuries after Diocletian and
Constantine the term "decay" or "decline"
is unfair and misleading. If, however, in
the formula "decay of ancient civilization"
we lay stress on "ancient" and not on
"civilization," the formula hits the point.
No doubt "ancient" that is, "Greco-
Roman" civilization, the civilization of
the world of Greco-Roman cities, of the
Greek "politai" and Roman "cives," was
gradually simplified, barbarized, reduced to
its elements, and the bearers of this civiliza-
tion, the cities and their inhabitants, gradu-
ally disappeared or changed their aspect
almost completely. . . .

From MEDIEVAL CITIES

HENRI PIREN N E

THE MEDITERRANEAN

TE ROMAN EMPIRE, at the end of the
:hird century, had one outstanding
general characteristic: it was an essentially
Mediterranean commonwealth. Virtually all
of its territory lay within the watershed of
that great land-locked sea; the distant
frontiers of the Rhine, the Danube, the
Euphrates and the Sahara, may be regarded
merely as an advanced circle of outer
defenses protecting the approaches.

The Mediterranean was, without ques-
tion, the bulwark of both its political and
economic unity. Its very existence depended
on mastery of the sea. Without that great
trade route, neither the government, nor
the defense, nor the administration of the
orbls romanus would have been possible.

As the Empire grew old this fundamen-
tally maritime character was, interestingly
enough, not only preserved but was still
more sharply defined. When the former
inland capital, Rome, was abandoned, its
place was taken by a city which not only
served as a capital but which was at the same
time an admirable seaport Constantinople.

The Empire's cultural development, to
be sure, had clearly passed its peak. Popu-
lation decreased, the spirit of enterprise
waned, barbarian hordes commenced to
threaten the frontiers, and the increasing
expenses of the government, fighting for its
very life, brought in their train a fiscal
system which more and more enslaved men
to the State. Nevertheless this general

deterioration does not seem to have appre-
ciably affected the maritime commerce of
the Mediterranean. It continued to be
active and well sustained, in marked con-
trast with the growing apathy that charac-
terized the inland provinces. Trade con-
tinued to keep the East and the West in
close contact with each other. There was
no interruption to the intimate commercial
relations between those diverse climes
bathed by one and the same sea. Both
manufactured and natural products were
still extensively dealt in: textiles from
Constantinople, Edessa, Antioch, and Alex-
andria; wines, oils, and spices from Syria;
papyrus from Egypt; wheat from Egypt,
Africa, and Spain; and wines from Gaul
and Italy. There was even a reform of
the monetary system based on the gold
solidus, which served materially to encour-
age commercial operations by giving them
the benefit of an excellent currency, uni-
versally adopted as an instrument of ex-
change and as a means of quoting prices.
Of the two great regions of the Empire,
the East and the West, the first far sur-
passed the second, both in superiority of
civilization and in a much higher level of
economic development. At the beginning
of the fourth century there were no longer
any really great cities save in the East
The center of the export trade was in Syria
and in Asia Minor, and here also was con-
centrated, in particular, the textile industry

From Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (Princeton, 1925),
pp. 3-55. By permission o the Princeton University Press, and the Oxford University Press.

11

12

HENRI PIRENNE

for which the whole Roman world was the
market and for which Syrian ships were
the carriers.

The commercial prominence of the
Syrians is one of the most interesting facts
iri the history of the Lower Empire. It
undoubtedly contributed largely to that pro-
gressive orientalization of society which was
due eventually to end in Byzantinisrn. And
this orientalization, of which the sea was
the vehicle, is clear proof of the increasing
importance which the Mediterranean ac-
quired as the aging Empire grew weak,
gave way in the North beneath the pressure
of the barbarians, and contracted more and
more about the shores of this inland sea.

The persistence of the Germanic tribes
in striving, from the very beginning of the
period of the invasions, to reach these same
shores and to settle there is worth special
notice. When, in the course of the fourth
century, the frontiers gave way for the first
time under their blows, they poured south-
xvard in a living flood. The Quadi and the
Marcomanni invaded Italy; the Goths
marched on the Bosporus; the Franks, the
Suevi, and the Vandals, who by now had
crossed the Rhine, pushed on unhesitatingly
towards Aquitaine and Spain. They had no
thought of merely colonizing the provinces
they coveted. Their dream was rather to
settle down, themselves, in those happy
regions where the mildness of the climate
and the fertility of the soil were matched
by the charms and the wealth of civilization.

This initial attempt produced nothing
more permanent than the devastation which
it had caused. Rome was still strong enough
to drive the invaders back beyond the Rhine
and the Danube. For a century and a half
she succeeded in restraining diem, but at
the cost of exhausting her armies and her
finances.

More and more unequal became the
balance of power. The incursions of the
barbarians grew more relentless as their
increasing numbers made the acquisition
of new territory more imperative, while the
decreasing population of the Empire made
a successful resistance constantly less pos-

sible. Despite the extraordinary skill and
determination with which the Empire
sought to stave off disaster, the outcome
was inevitable.

At the beginning of the fifth century, all
was over. The whole West was invaded.
Roman provinces were transformed into
Germanic kingdoms. The Vandals were
installed in Africa, the Visigoths in Aqui-
taine and in Spain, the Burgundians in the
Valley of the Rhone, the Ostrogoths in
Italy.

This nomenclature is significant. It in-
cludes only Mediterranean countries, and
little more is needed to show that the objec-
tive of the conquerors, free at last to settle
down where they pleased, was the sea
that sea which for so long a time the
Romans had called, with as much affection
as pride, mare nostrum. Towards the sea,
as of one accord, they all turned their steps,
impatient to settle along its shores and to
enjoy its beauty.

If "the Franks did not reach the Mediter-
ranean at their first attempt, it is because,
having come too late, they found the ground
already occupied. But they too persisted in
striving for a foothold there. One of Clovis's
earliest ambitions was to conquer Provence,
"' and only the intervention of Theodoric kept
him from extending the frontiers of his
kingdom as far as the Cote d'Azur. Yet this
first lack of success was not due to discour-
age his successors. A quarter of a century
later, in 536, the Franks made good use of
Justinian's offensive against the Ostrogoths
and wrung from their hard-pressed rivals
the grant of the coveted territory. It is
interesting to see how consistently the
Merovingian dynasty tended, from that date
on, to become in its turn a Mediterranean
power.

Childebert and Clotaire, for example,
ventured upon an expedition beyond the
Pyrenees in 542, which, however, proved to
be ill-starred. But it was Italy in particular
that aroused the cupidity of the Prankish
kings. They formed an alliance, first with
the Byzantines 1 and then with the Lombards,
in the hope of setting foot south of the

From Medieval Cities

13

Alps. Repeatedly thwarted, they persisted
in fresh attempts. By 539, Theudebert had
crossed the Alps, and the territories which
he had occupied were reconquered by
Narses in 553. Numerous efforts were made
in 584-585 and from 588 to 590 to get
possession anew.

The appearance of the Germanic tribes
on the shore of the Mediterranean was by
no means a critical point marking the
advent of a new era in the history of
Europe. Great as were the consequences
which it entailed, it did not sweep the
boards clean nor even break the tradition.
The aim of the invaders was not to destroy
the Roman Empire but to occupy and enjoy
it. By and large, what they preserved far
exceeded what they destroyed or what they
brought that was new. It is true that the
kingdoms they established on the soil of
the Empire made an end of the latter in so
far as being a State in Western Europe.
From a political point of view the orbis
romanus, now strictly localized in the East,
lost that ecumenical character which had
made its frontiers coincide with the frontiers
of Christianity. The Empire, however, was
far from becoming a stranger to the lost
provinces. Its civilization there outlived its
authority. By the Church, by language, by
the superiority of its institutions and law,
it prevailed over the conquerors. In the
midst of the troubles, the insecurity, the
misery and the anarchy which accompanied
the invasions there was naturally a certain
decline, but even in that decline there was
preserved a physiognomy still distinctly
Roman. The Germanic tribes were unable,
and in fact did not want, to do without it.
They barbarized it, but they did not con-
sciously germanize it.

Nothing is better proof of this assertion
than the persistence in the last days of
the Empire from the fifth to the eighth
century of that maritime character pointed
out above. The importance of the Mediter-
ranean did not grow less after the period of
the invasions. The sea remained for the
Germanic tribes what it had been before
their arrival the very center of Europe,

the mare nostrum. The sea had had such
great importance in the political order that
the deposing of the last Roman Emperor
in the West (476) was not enough in itself
to turn historical evolution from its time-
honored direction, It continued, on the
contrary, to develop in the same theater and
under the same influences. No indication
yet gave warning of the end of that com-
monwealth of civilization created by the
Empire from the Pillars of Hercules to the
Aegean Sea, from the coasts of Egypt and
Africa to the shores of Gaul, Italy and
Spain. In spite of the invasion of the bar-
barians the new world conserved, in all
essential characteristics, the physiognomy
of the old. To follow the course of events
from Romulus Augustulus to Charlemagne
it is necessary to keep the Mediterranean
constantly in view.

All the great events in political history
are unfolded on its shores. From 493 to 526
Italy, governed by Theodoric, maintained
a hegemony over all the Germanic king-
doms, a hegemony through which the power
of the Roman tradition was perpetuated
and assured. After Theodoric, this power
was still more clearly shown. Justinian
^ failed by but little of restoring imperial
unity (527-565). Africa, Spain, and Italy
were reconquered. The Mediterranean be-
came again a Roman lake. Byzantium, it is
true, weakened by the immense effort she
had just put forth, could neither finish nor
even preserve intact the astonishing work
which she had accomplished. The Lombards
took Northern Italy away from her (568);
the Visigoths freed themselves from her
yoke. Nevertheless she did not abandon
her ambitions. She retained, for a long time
to come, Africa, Sicily, Southern Italy. Nor
did she loose her grip on the West thanks
to the sea, the mastery of which her fleets
so securely held that the fate of Europe
rested at that moment, more than ever, on
the waves of the Mediterranean.

What was true of the political situation
held equally well for the cultural. It seems
hardly necessary to recall that Boethius
(480-525) and Cassiodorus (477-c. 562)

14

HENRI PIRENNE

were Italians as were St. Benedict (480-
534) and Gregory the Great (590-604),
and that Isidorus of Seville (570-636) was
a Spaniard. It was Italy that maintained
the last schools at the same time that she
was fostering the spread of monachism
north of the Alps. It was in Italy, also, that
what was left of the ancient culture flour-
ished side by side with what was brought
forth anew in the bosom of the Church.
All the strength and vigor that the Church
possessed was concentrated in the region of
the Mediterranean. There alone she gave
evidence of an organization and spirit ca-
pable of initiating great enterprises. An
interesting example of this is the fact that
Christianity was brought to the Anglo-
Saxons (596) from the distant shores of
Italy, not from the neighboring shores of
Gaul. The mission of St. Augustine is there-
fore an illuminating sidelight on the historic
influence retained by the Mediterranean.
And it seems more significant still when
we recall that the evangelization of Ireland
was due to missionaries sent out from
Marseilles, and that the apostles of Belgium,
St. Amand (689-693) and St. Remade
(c. 668), were Aquitanians.

A brief survey of the economic develop-
ment of Europe will give the crowning
touch to the substantiation of the theory
which has here been put forward. That
development is, obviously, a clear-cut, direct
continuation of the economy of the Roman
Empire. In it are rediscovered all the latter's
principal traits and, above all, that Mediter-
ranean character which here is unmistak-
able. To be sure, a general decline in social
activity was apparent in this region as in
all others. By the last days of the Empire
there was a clearly marked decline which
the catastrophe of the invasions naturally
helped accentuate. But it would be a
decided mistake to imagine that the arrival
of the Germanic tribes had as a result the
substitution of a purely agricultural econ-
omy and a general stagnation in trade for
urban life and commercial activity.

The supposed dislike of the barbarians
for towns is an admitted fable to which

reality has given the lie. If, on the extreme
frontiers of the Empire, certain towns were
put to the torch, destroyed and pillaged, it
is none the less true that the immense
majority survived the invasions. A statistical
survey of cities in existence at the present
day in France, in Italy and even on the
banks of the Rhine and the Danube, gives
proof that, for the most part, these cities
now stand on the sites where rose the
Roman cities, and that their very names are
often but a transformation of Roman names.

The Church had of course closely pat-
terned the religious districts after the ad-
ministrative districts of the Empire. As a
general rule, each diocese corresponded to
a civitas. Since the ecclesiastical organiza-
tion suffered no change during the era of
the Germanic invasions, the result was that
in the new kingdoms founded by the con-
querors it preserved intact this characteristic
feature. In fact, from the beginning of the
sixth century the word civitas took the
special meaning of "episcopal city/' the cen-
ter of the diocese. In surviving the Empire
on which it was based, the Church therefore
contributed very largely to the safeguarding
of the existence of the Roman cities.

But it must not be overlooked, on the
other hand, that these cities in themselves
long retained a considerable importance.
Their municipal institutions did not sud-
denly disappear upon the arrival of the
Germanic tribes. Not only in Italy, but also
in Spain and even in Gaul, they kept their
decuriones a corps of magistrates provided
with a judicial and administrative authority,
the details of which are not clear but whose
existence and Roman origin is a matter of
record. There is to be noticed, moreover,
the presence of the defensor civitatis, and
the practice of inscribing notarized deeds
in the gesta municipalia.

It is also well established that these cities
were the centers of an economic activity
which itself was a survival of the preceding
civilization. Each city was the market for
the surrounding countryside, the winter
home of the great landed proprietors of the
neighborhood and, if favorably situated,

From Medieval Cities

15

the center of a commerce the more highly
developed in proportion to its nearness to
the shores of the Mediterranean. A perusal
of Gregory of Tours gives ample proof that
in the Gaul of his time there was still a
professional merchant class residing in the
towns. He cites, in some thoroughly char-
acteristic passages, those of Verdun, Paris,
Orleans, Clermont-Ferrand, Marseilles,
Nimes, and Bordeaux, and the information
which he supplies concerning them is all
the more significant in that it is brought
into his narrative only incidentally. Care
should of course be taken not to exaggerate
its value. An equally great fault would be
to undervalue it. Certainly the economic
order of Merovingian Gaul was founded on
agriculture rather than on any other form
of activity. More certainly still this had
already been the case under the Roman
Empire.

But this does not preclude the fact that
inland traffic, the import and export of
goods and merchandise, was carried on to a
considerable extent. It was an important
factor in the maintenance of society. An
indirect proof of this is furnished by the
institution of market-tolls. Thus were called
the tolls set up by the Roman administra-
tion along the roads, in the ports, at bridges
and fords, and elsewhere. The Prankish
kings let them all stay in force and drew
from them such copious revenues that the
collectors of this class of taxes figured
among their most useful functionaries.

The continued commercial activity after
the disappearance of the Empire, and, like-
wise, the survival of the towns that were
the centers thereof and the merchants who
were its instruments, is explained by the
continuation of Mediterranean trade. In all
the chief characteristics it was the same,
from the fifth to the eighth centuries, as it
had been just after Constantine. If, as is
probable, the decline was the more rapid
after the Germanic invasions, it remains
none the less true that there is presented a
picture of uninterrupted intercourse be-
tween the Byzantine East and the West
dominated by the barbarians. By means of

the shipping which was carried on from the
coasts of Spain and Gaul to those of Syria
and Asia Minor, the basin of the Mediter-
ranean did not cease, despite the political
subdivisions which it had seen take place,
to consolidate the economic unity which it
had shaped for centuries under the imperial
commonwealth. Because of this fact, the
economic organization of the world lived
on after the political transformation.

In lack of other proofs, the monetary
system of the Prankish kings would alone
establish this truth convincingly. This sys-
tem, as is too well known to make necessary
any lengthy consideration here, was purely
Roman or, strictly speaking, Romano-
Byzantine. This is shown by the coins that
were minted: the solid^ls, the triens, and
the denarius that is to say, the soit, the
third-sou and the denier. It is shown further
by the metal which was employed: gold,
used for the coinage of the solidus and the
triens. It is also shown by the weight which
was given to specie. It is shown, finally,
by the effigies which were minted on the
coins. In this connection it is worth noting
that the mints continued for a long time,
under the Merovingian kings, the custom
of representing the bust of the Emperor on
the coins and of showing on the reverse
of the pieces the Victoria Augusti and that,
carrying this imitation to the extreme, when
the Byzantines substituted the cross for the
symbol of that victory they did the same.
Such extreme servility can be explained
only by the continuing influence of the
Empire. The obvious reason was the neces-
sity of preserving, between the local cur-
rency and the imperial currency, a conform-
ity which would be purposeless if the most
intimate relations had not existed between
Merovingian commerce and the general
commerce of the Mediterranean. In other
words, this commerce continued to be
closely bound up with the commerce of
the Byzantine Empire. Of such ties, more-
over, there are abundant proofs and it will
suffice to mention merely a few of the most
significant.

It should be borne in mind, first of all,

16

HENRI PIRENNE

that at the start of the eighth century
Marseilles was still the great port of Gaul.
The terms employed by Gregory of Tours,
in the numerous anecdotes in which he
happens to speak of that city, make it seem
a singularly animated economic center. A
very active shipping bound it to Constanti-
nople, to Syria, Africa, Egypt, Spain and
Italy. The products of the East papyrus,
spices, costly textiles, wine and oil were
the basis of a regular import trade. Foreign
merchants, Jews and Syrians for the most
part, had their residence there, and their
nationality is itself an indication of the
close relations kept up by Marseilles with
Byzantium. Finally, the extraordinary
quantity of coins which were struck there
during the Merovingian era gives material
proof of the activity of its commerce. The
population of the city must have comprised,
aside from the merchants, a rather numer-
ous class of artisans. In every respect it
seems, then, to have accurately preserved,
under the government of the Prankish
kings, the clearly municipal character of
Roman cities.

The economic development of Marseilles
naturally made itself felt in the hinterland
of the port. Under its attraction, all the
commerce of Gaul was oriented toward the
Mediterranean. The most important market-
tolls of the Prankish kingdom were situated
in the neighborhood of the town at Fos, at
Aries, at Toulon, at Sorgues, at Valence,
at Vienne, and at Avignon. Here is clear
proof that merchandise landed in the city
was expedited to the interior. By the course
of the Rhone and of the Saone, as well as
by the Roman roads, it reached the north
of the country. The charters are still in
existence by which the Abbey of Corbie
(Department of Pas-de-Calais) obtained
from the kings an exemption from tolls at
Fos on a number of commodities, among
which may be remarked a surprising variety
of spices of eastern origin, as well as papy-
rus. In these circumstances it does not seem
unwarranted to assume that the commercial
activity of the ports of Rouen and Nantes,
on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, as well

as of Quentovic and Duurstede, on the
shores of the North Sea, was sustained by
the ramifications of the export traffic from
far-off Marseilles.

But it was in the south of the country
that this effect was the most appreciable.
All the largest cities of Merovingian Gaul
were still to be found, as in the days of the
Roman Empire, south of the Loire. The
details which Gregory of Tours supplies
concerning Clermont-Ferrand and Orleans
show that they had within their walls veri-
table colonies of Jews and Syrians, and if
it was so with those towns which there is
no reason for believing enjoyed a privileged
status, it must have been so also with the
much more important centers such as
Bordeaux or Lyons. It is an established
fact, moreover, that Lyons still had at the
Carolingian era a quite numerous Jewish
population.

Here, then, is quite enough to support
the conclusion that Merovingian times
knew, thanks to the continuance of Medi-
terranean shipping and the intermediary of
Marseilles, what we may safely call a great
commerce. It would certainly be an error
to assume that the dealings of the oriental
merchants of Gaul were restricted solely to
articles of luxury. Probably the sale of
jewelry, enamels and silk stuffs resulted in
handsome profits, but this would not be
enough to explain their number and their
extraordinary diffusion throughout all the
country. The traffic of Marseilles was, above
all else, supported by goods for general
consumption such as wine and oil, spices
and papyrus. These commodities, as has
already been pointed out, were regularly
exported to the north.

The oriental merchants of the Prankish
Empire were virtually engaged in wholesale
trade. Their boats, after being discharged
on the quays of Marseilles, certainly carried
back, on leaving the shores of Provence,
not only passengers but return freight. Our
sources of information, to be sure, do not
tell much about the nature of this freight.
Among the possible conjectures, one of the
most likely is that it probably consisted, at

From Medieval Cities

17

least in good part, in human chattels that
is to say, in slaves. Traffic in slaves did not
cease to be carried on in the Prankish
Empire until the end of the ninth century.
The wars waged against the barbarians of
Saxony, Thuringia and the Slavic regions
provided a source of supply which seems
to have been abundant enough. Gregory
of Tours speaks of Saxon slaves belonging
to a merchant of Orleans, and it is a good
guess that this Samo, who departed in the
first half of the seventh century with a band
of companions for the country of Wends,
whose king he eventually became, was very
probably nothing more than an adventurer
trafficking in slaves. And it is of course
obvious that the slave trade, to which the
Jews still assiduously applied themselves in
the ninth century, must have had its origin
in an earlier era.

If the bulk of the commerce in Mero-
vingian Gaul was to be found in the hands
of oriental merchants, their influence, how-
ever, should not be exaggerated. Side by
side with them, and according to all indica-
tions in constant relations with them, are
mentioned indigenous merchants. Gregory
of Tours does not fail to supply information
concerning them, which would undoubt-
edly have been more voluminous if his
narrative had had more than a merely
incidental interest in them. He shows the
king consenting to a loan to the merchants
of Verdun, whose business prospers so well
that they soon find themselves in a position
to reimburse him. He mentions the exist-
ence in Paris of a domus negociantum
that is to say, apparently, of a sort of market
or bazaar. He speaks of a merchant profit-
eering during the great famine of 585 and
getting rich. And in all these anecdotes he

dealing, without the least doubt, with
professionals and not with merely casual
buyers or sellers.

The picture which the commerce of
Merovingian Gaul presents is repeated,
naturally, in the other maritime Germanic
kingdoms of the Mediterranean among
the Ostrogoths of Italy, among the Vandals
of Africa, among the Visigoths of Spain.

is

The Edict of Theodoric contained a quan-
tity of stipulations relative to merchants.
Carthage continued to be an important port
in close relations with Spain, and her ships,
apparently, went up the coast as far as
Bordeaux. The laws of the Visigoths men-
tioned merchants from overseas.

In all of this is clearly manifest the
vigorous continuity of the commercial
development of the Roman Empire after
the Germanic invasions. They did not put
an end to the economic unity of antiquity.
By means of the Mediterranean and the
relations kept up thereby between the West
and the East, this unity, on the contrary,
was preserved with a remarkable distinctive-
ness. The great inland sea of Europe no
longer belonged, as before, to a single State.
But nothing yet gave reason to predict that
it would soon cease to have its time-honored
importance. Despite the transformations
which it had undergone, the new world had
not lost the Mediterranean character of the
old. On the shores of the sea was still
concentrated the better part of its activities,
No indication yet gave warning of the end
of the commonwealth of civilization, created
by the Roman Empire from the Pillars of
Hercules to the Aegean Sea. At the begin-
ning of the seventh century, anyone who
sought to look into the future would have
been unable to discern any reason for not
believing in the continuance of the old
tradition.

Yet what was then natural and reasonable
to predict was not to be realized. The world-
order which had survived the Germanic
invasions was not able to survive the inva-
sion of Islam.

It is thrown across the path of history
with the elemental force of a cosmic cata-
clysm. Even in the lifetime of Mahomet
(571-632) no one could have imagined the
consequences or have prepared for them.
Yet the movement took no more than fifty
years to spread from the China Sea to the
Atlantic Ocean. Nothing was able to with-
stand it. At the first blow, it overthrew the
Persian Empire (637-644). It took from
the Byzantine Empire, in quick succession,

18

HENRI PIRENNE

Syria (634-636), Egypt (640-642), Africa
(698). It reached into Spain (711). The
resistless advance was not to slow down
until the start of the eighth century, when
the walls of Constantinople on the one
side (713) and the soldiers of Charles
Martel on the other (732) broke that
great enveloping offensive against the two
flanks of Christianity.

But if its force of expansion was ex-
hausted, it had none the less changed the
face of the world. Its sudden thrust had
destroyed ancient Europe. It had put an
end to the Mediterranean commonwealth
in which it had gathered its strength.

The familiar and almost "family" sea
which once united all the parts of this
commonwealth was to become a barrier
between them. On all its shores, for cen-

turies, social life, in its fundamental charac-
teristics, had been the same; religion, the
same; customs and ideas, the same or very
nearly so. The invasion of the barbarians
from the North had modified nothing
essential in that situation,

But now, all of a sudden, the very lands
where civilization had been born were torn
away; the Cult of the Prophet was substi-
tuted for the Christian Faith, Moslem law
for Roman law, the Arab tongue for the
Greek and the Latin tongue.

The Mediterranean had been a Roman
lake; it now became, for the most part, a
Moslem lake. From this time on it sepa-
rated, instead of uniting, the East and the
West of Europe, The tie which was still
binding the Byzantine Empire to the Ger-
manic kingdoms of the West was broken.

THE NINTH CENTURY

The tremendous effect the invasion of
Islam had upon Western Europe has not,
perhaps, been fully appreciated.

Out of it arose a new and unparalleled
situation, unlike anything that had gone
before. Through the Phoenicians, the
Greeks, and finally the Romans, Western
Europe had always received the cultural
stamp of the East. It had lived, as it were,
by virtue of the Mediterranean; now for
the first time it was forced to live by its
own resources. The center of gravity, here-
tofore on the shore of the Mediterranean,
was shifted to the north. As a result the
Prankish Empire, which had so far been
playing only a minor role in the history
of Europe, was to become the arbiter of
Europe's destinies.

There is obviously more than mere coin-
cidence in the simultaneity of the closing
of the Mediterranean by Islam and the
entry of the Carolingians on the scene.
There is the distinct relation of cause and
effect between the two. The Prankish
Empire was fated to lay the foundations of
the Europe of the Middle Ages. But the
mission which it fulfilled had as an essential

prior condition the overthrow of the tradi-
tional world-order. The Carolingians would
never have been called upon to play the
part they did if historical evolution had not
been turned aside from its course and, so
to speak, "de-Saxoned" by the Moslem in-
vasion. Without Islam, the Prankish Empire
would probably never have existed and
Charlemagne, without Mahomet, would be
inconceivable.

This is made plain enough by the many
contrasts between the Merovingian era,
during which the Mediterranean retained
its time-honored historical importance, and
the Carolingian era, when that influence
ceased to make itself felt. These contrasts
were in evidence everywhere: in religious
sentiment, in political and social institu-
tions, in literature, in language and even
in handwriting. From whatever standpoint
it is studied, the civilization of the ninth
century shows a distinct break with the
civilization of antiquity. Nothing would
be more fallacious than to see therein a
simple continuation of the preceding cen-
turies. The coup d'etat of Pepin the Short
was considerably more than the substitution

From Medieval Cities

19

of one dynasty for another. It marked a
new orientation of the course hitherto fol-
lowed by history. At first glance there seems
reason to believe that Charlemagne, in
assuming the title of Roman Emperor and
of Augustus, wished to restore the ancient
tradition. In reality, in setting himself up
against the Emperor of Constantinople, he
broke that tradition. His Empire was
Roman only in so far as the Catholic
Church was Roman. For it was from the
Church, and the Church alone, that came
its inspiration. The forces which he placed
at her service were, moreover, forces of the
north. His principal collaborators, in reli-
gious and cultural matters, were no longer,
as they had previously been, Italians,
Aquitanians, or Spaniards; they were Anglo-
Saxons a St. Boniface or an Alcuin or
they were Swabians, like Einhard. In the
affairs of the State, which was now cut off
from the Mediterranean, southerners played
scarcely any role. The Germanic influence
commenced to dominate at the very moment
when the Prankish Empire, forced to turn
away from the Mediterranean, spread over
Northern Europe and pushed its frontiers
as far as the Elbe and the mountains of
Bohemia. 1

In the field of economics the contrast,
which the Carolingian period shows to
Merovingian times, is especially striking.
In the days of the Merovingians, Gaul was
still a maritime country and trade and traffic
flourished because of that fact. The Empire
of Charlemagne, on the contrary, was essen-
tially an inland one. No longer was there
any communication with the exterior; it
was a closed State, a State without foreign
markets, living in a condition of almost
complete isolation.

1 The objection may be raised that Charlemagne
conquered in Italy the kingdom of the Lombards
and in Spain the region included between the
Pyrenees and the Ehro. But these thrusts towards
the south are by no means to be explained Ly a
desire to dominate the shores of the Mediterra-
nean. The expeditions against the Lombards were
provoked by political causes and especially by the
alliance with the Papacy. The expedition in Spain
had no other aim than the establishing of a solid
frontier against the Moslems,

To be sure, the transition from one era
to the other was not clear-cut. The trade of
Marseilles did not suddenly cease but, from
the middle of the seventh century, waned
gradually as the Moslems advanced in the
Mediterranean. Syria, conquered by them
in 633-638, no longer kept it thriving with
her ships and her merchandise. Shortly
afterwards, Egypt passed in her turn under
the yoke of Islam (638-640), and papyrus
no longer came to Gaul. A characteristic
consequence is that, after 677, the royal
chancellery stopped using papyrus. The
importation of spices kept up for a while,
for the monks of Corbie, in 716, believed
it useful to have ratified for the last time
their privileges of the tonlieu of Fos. A half
century later, solitude reigned in the port
of Marseilles. Her foster-mother, the sea,
was shut off from her and the economic life
of the inland regions which had been
nourished through her intermediary was
definitely extinguished. By the ninth cen-
tury Provence, once the richest country of
Gaul, had become the poorest.

More and more, the Moslems consoli-
dated their domination over the sea. In tLe
course of the ninth century they seized the
Balearic Isles, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily. On
the coasts of Africa they founded new ports:
Tunis (698-703); later on, Mehdia to the
south of this city; then Cairo, in 973. Pa-
lermo, where stood a great arsenal, became
their principal base in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Their fleets sailed it in complete mastery;
commercial flotillas transported the products
of the West to Cairo, whence they were re-
dispatched to Bagdad, or pirate fleets devas-
tated the coasts of Provence and Italy ernd
put towns to the torch after they had been
pillaged and their inhabitants captured to
be sold as slaves. In 889 a band of these
plunderers even laid hold of Fraxinetum
(the present Garde-Frainet, in the Depart-
ment of the Var) not far from Nice, the
garrison of which, for nearly a century
thereafter, subjected the neighboring popu-
lace to continual raids and menaced the
roads which led across the Alps from France
to Italy.

20

HENRI PIRENNE

The efforts of Charlemagne and his suc-
cessors to protect the coasts from Saracen
raiders were as impotent as their attempts
to oppose the invasions of the Norsemen in
the north and west. The hardihood and
seamanship of the Danes and Norwegians
made it easy for them to plunder the coasts
of the Carolingian Empire during the \vhole
of the eleventh century. They conducted
their raids not only from the North Sea,
the Channel, and the Gulf of Gascony,
but at times even from the Mediterranean.
Every river which emptied into these seas
was, at one time or another, ascended by
their skilfully constructed barks, splendid
specimens whereof, brought to light by
recent excavations, are now preserved at
Oslo. Periodically the valleys of the Rhine,
the Meuse ? the Scheldt, the Seine, the
Loire, the Garonne and the Rhone were
the scene of systematic and persistent pillag-
ing. The devastation was so complete that,
in many cases indeed, the population itself
disappeared. And nothing is a better illus-
tration of the essentially inland character
of the Prankish Empire than its inability to
organize the defense of its coasts, against
either Saracens or Norsemen. For that
defense, to be effective, should have been
a naval defense, and the Empire had no
fleets, or hastily improvised ones at best.

Such conditions w r ere incompatible with
the existence of a commerce of first-rate
importance. The historical literature of the
ninth century contains, it is true, certain
references to merchants (mercatores, negoti-
ator es), but no illusion should be cherished
as to their importance. Compared to the
number of texts which have been preserved
from that era, these references are extremely
rare. The capitularies, those regulations
touching upon every phase of social life,
are remarkably meagre in so far as applies
to commerce. From this it may be assumed
that the latter played a role of only second-
ary, negligible importance. It was only in
the north of Gaul that, during the first half
of the ninth century, trade showed any
signs of activity.

The ports of Quentovic (a place now

vanished, near Etaples in the Department
of Pas-de-Calais) and Duurstede (on the
Rhine, southwest of Utrecht) which under
the Merovingian monarchy were already
trading with England and Denmark, seem
to have been centers of a widely extended
shipping. It is a safe conjecture that because
of them the river transport of the Friesians
along the Rhine, the Scheldt and the Meuse
enjoyed an importance that w T as matched
by no other region during the reigns of
Charlemagne and his successors. The cloths
woven by the peasants of Flanders, and
which contemporary texts designate by the
name of Friesian cloaks, together with the
wines of Rhenish Germany, supplied to
that river traffic the substance of an export
trade which seems to have been fairly regu-
lar up to the day when the Norsemen took
possession of the ports in question. It is
known, moreover, that the denier s coined
at Duurstede had a very extensive circula-
tion. They served as prototypes for the
oldest coins of Sweden and Poland, evident
proof that they early penetrated, no doubt
at the hands of the Norsemen, as far as the
Baltic Sea. Attention may also be called,
as having been the substance of a rather
extensive trade, to the salt industry of
Noirmoutier, where Irish ships were to be
seen. Salzburg salt, on the other hand, was
shipped along the Danube and its affluents
to the interior of the Empire. The sale of
slaves, despite the prohibitions that were
laid down by the sovereigns, was carried
on along the western frontiers, where the
prisoners of war taken from among the
pagan Slavs found numerous purchasers.

The Jews seem to have applied them-
selves particularly to this sort of traffic.
They were still numerous, and were found
in every part of Francia. Those in the south
of Gaul were in close relations with their
coreligionists of Moslem Spain, to whom
they are accused of having sold Christian
children.

It was probably from Spain, or perhaps
also from Venice, that these Jews obtained
the spices and the valuable textiles in which
they dealt. However, the obligation to

From Medieval Cities

21

which they were subjected of having their
children baptized must have caused a great
number of them to emigrate south of the
Pyrenees at an early date, and their com-
mercial importance steadily declined in the
course of the ninth century. As for the
Syrians, they were no longer of importance
at this era.

It is, then, most likely that the commerce
of Carolingian times was very much re-
duced. Except in the neighborhood of
Quentovic and Duurstede, it consisted only
in the transport of indispensable commodi-
ties, such as wine and salt, in the prohibited
traffic of a few slaves, and in the barter,
through the intermediary of the Jews, of a
small number of products from the East.

Of a regular and normal commercial
activity, of steady trading carried on by a
class of professional merchants, in short, of
all that constitutes the very essence of an
economy of exchange worthy of the name,
no traces are to be found after the closing
off of the Mediterranean by the Islamic
invasion. The great number of markets,
which were to be found in the ninth cen-
tury, in no way contradicts this assertion.
They were, as a matter of fact, only small
local marketplaces, instituted for the weekly
provisioning of the populace by means of
the retail sale of foodstuffs from the country.
As a proof of the commercial activity of the
Carolingian era, it would be equally beside
the point to speak of the existence of the
street occupied by merchants at Aix-la-
Chapelle near the palace of Charlemagne,
or of similar streets near certain great abbeys
such as, for example, that of St. Riquier.
The merchants with whom we have to do
here were not, in fact, professional mer-
chants but servitors charged with the duty
of supplying the Court or the monks. They
were, so to speak, employees of the sei-
gnorial household staff and were in no
respect merchants.

There is, moreover, material proof of the
economic decline which affected Western
Europe from the day when she ceased to
belong to the Mediterranean common-
wealth. It is furnished by the reform of the

monetary system, initiated by Pepin the
Short and completed by Charlemagne. That
reform abandoned gold coinage and substi-
tuted silver in its place. The solidus which
had heretofore, conforming to the Roman
tradition, constituted the basic monetary
unit, was now only nominal money. The
only real coins from this time on were the
silver deniers, weighing about two grams,
the metallic value of which, compared to
that of the dollar, was approximately eight
and one-half cents. The metallic value of
the Merovingian gold solidus being nearly
three dollars, the importance of the reform
can be readily appreciated. Undoubtedly
it is to be explained only by a prodigious
falling off of both trading and wealth.

If it is admitted, and it must be admitted,
that the reappearance of gold coinage, with
the florins of Florence and the ducats of
Venice in the thirteenth century, charac-
terized the economic renaissance of Europe,
the inverse is also true: the abandoning of
gold coinage in the eighth century was the
manifestation of a profound decline. It is
not enough to say that Pepin and Charle-
magne wished to remedy the monetary dis-
order of the last days of the Merovingian
era. It would have been quite possible for
them to find a remedy without giving up
the gold standard. They gave up the stand-
ard, obviously, from necessity that is to
say, as a result of the disappearance of the
yellow metal in Gaul. And this disappear-
ance had no other cause than the interrup-
tion of the commerce of the Mediterranean.
The proof of this is given by the fact that
Southern Italy, remaining in contact with
Constantinople, retained like the latter a
gold standard, for which the Carolingian
sovereigns were forced to substitute a silver
standard. The very light weight of their
deniers, moreover, testifies to the economic
isolation o their Empire. It is inconceivable
that they would have reduced the monetary
unit to a thirtieth of its former value if
there had been preserved the slightest bond
between their States and the Mediterranean
regions where the gold solidus continued
to circulate.

22

HENRI PIRENNE

But this is not all. The monetary reform
of the ninth century not only was in keep-
ing with the general impoverishment of the
era in which it took place, but with the
circulation of money which \vas noteworthy
for both lightness and inadequacy. In the
absence of centers of attraction sufficiently
powerful to draw money from afar, it
remained, so to speak, stagnant. Charle-
magne and his successors in vain ordered
that deniers should be coined only in the
royal mints. Under the reign of Louis the
Pious, it was necessary to give to certain
churches authorization to coin money, in
view of the difficulties, under which they
labored, of obtaining cash. From the second
half of the ninth century on, the authoriza-
tion to establish a market was almost always
accompanied by the authorization to estab-
lish a mint in the same place. The State
could not retain the monopoly of minting
coins. It was consistently frittered away.
And that is again a manifestation, by no
means equivocal, of the economic decline.
History shows that the better commerce is
sustained, the more the monetary system is
centralized and simplified. The dispersion,
the variety, and in fact the anarchy which
it manifests as we follow the course of the
ninth century, ends by giving striking
confirmation to the general theory here put
forward.

There have been some attempts to attrib-
ute to Charlemagne a far-seeing political
economy. This is to lend him ideas which,
however great we suppose his genius to
have been, it is impossible for him to have
had. No one can submit with any likeli-
hood of truth that the projects which he
commenced in 793, to join the Rednitz to
the Altmuhl and so establish communica-
tion between the Rhine and the Danube,
could have had any other purpose than
the transport of troops, or that the wars
against the Avars were provoked by the
desire to open up a commercial route to
Constantinople. The stipulations, in other
respects inoperative, of the capitularies
regarding coinages, weights and measures,
the market-tolls and the markets, were inti-

mately bound up with the general system
of regulation and control which was typical
of Carolingian legislation. The same is true
regarding the measures taken against usury
and the prohibition enjoining members of
the clergy from engaging in business. Their
purpose was to combat fraud, disorder and
indiscipline and to impose a Christian
morality on the people. Only a prejudiced
point of view can see in them an attempt
to stimulate the economic development of
the Empire.

We are so accustomed to consider the
reign of Charlemagne as an era of revival
that we are unconsciously led to imagine
an identical progress in all fields. Unfor-
tunately, what is true of literary culture, of
the religious State, of customs, institutions
and statecraft is not true of communications
and commerce. Every great thing that
Charlemagne accomplished was accom-
plished either by his military strength or
by his alliance with the Church. For that
matter, neither the Church nor arms could
overcome the circumstances in virtue of
which the Prankish Empire found itself
deprived of foreign markets. It was forced,
in fact, to accommodate itself to a situation
which was inevitably prescribed. History is
obliged to recognize that, however brilliant
it seems in other respects, the cycle of
Charlemagne, considered from an economic
viewpoint, is a cycle of regression.

The financial organization of the Prank-
ish Empire makes this plain. It was, indeed,
as rudimentary as could be. The poll tax,
which the Merovingians had preserved in
imitation of Rome, no longer existed. The
resources of the sovereign consisted only in
the revenue from his demesnes, in the
tributes levied on conquered tribes and in
the booty got by war. The market-tolls no
longer contributed to the replenishment of
the treasury, thus attesting to the commer-
cial decline of the period. They were noth-
ing more than a simple extortion brutally
levied in kind on the infrequent merchan-
dise transported by the rivers or along the
roads. The sorry proceeds, which should
have served to keep up the bridges, the

From Medieval Cities

23

docks and the highways, were swallowed
up by the functionaries who collected them.
The missi dominici, created to supervise
their administration, were impotent in
abolishing the abuses which they proved
to exist because the State, unable to pay its
agents, was likewise unable to impose its
authority on them. It was obliged to call
on the aristocracy which, thanks to their
social status, alone could give free services.
But in so doing it was constrained, for lack
of money, to choose the instruments of
power from among the midst of a group
of men whose most evident interest was to
diminish that power. The recruiting of the
functionaries from among the aristocracy
was the fundamental vice of the Prankish
Empire and the essential cause of its dis-
solution, which became so rapid after the
death of Charlemagne. Surely, nothing is
more fragile than that State the sovereign
of which, all-powerful in theory, is depend-
ent in fact upon the fidelity of his inde-
pendent agents.

The feudal system was in embryo in this
contradictory situation. The Carolingian
Empire would have been able to keep going
only if it had possessed, like the Byzantine
Empire or the Empire of the Caliphs, a tax
system, a financial control, a fiscal centrali-
zation and a treasury providing for the
salary of functionaries, for public works,
and for the maintenance of the army and
the navy. The financial impotence which
caused its downfall was a clear demonstra-
tion of the impossibility it encountered of
maintaining a political structure on an
economic base which was no longer able to
support the load.

That economic base of the State, as of
society, was from this time on the J&nded
proprietor. Just as the Carolingian Empire
was an inland State without foreign mar-
kets, so also was it an essentially agricultural
State. The traces of commerce which were
still to be found there were negligible.
There was no other property than landed
property, and no other work than rural
work. As has already been stated above,
this predominance of agriculture was no

new fact. It existed in a very distinct form
in the Roman era and it continued with
increasing strength in the Merovingian era.
As early as the close of antiquity, all the
west of Europe was covered with great
demesnes belonging to an aristocracy the
members of which bore the tide of senators.
More and more, property was disappearing
in a transformation into hereditary tenures,
while the old free farmers were themselves
undergoing a transformation into "cultiva-
tors" bound to the soil, from father to son.
The Germanic invasions did not noticeably
alter this state of things. We have definitely
given up the idea of picturing the Germanic
tribes in the light of a democracy of peas-
ants, all on an equal footing. Social distinc-
tions were very great among them even
when they first invaded the Empire. They
comprised a minority of the wealthy and a
majority of the poor. The number of slaves
and half-free was considerable.

The arrival of the invaders in the Roman
provinces brought wdth it, then, no over-
throw of the existing order. The newcomers
preserved, in adapting themselves thereto,
the status quo. Many of the invaders
received from the king or acquired by force
or by marriage, or otherwise, great demesnes
which made them the equals of the "sena-
tors." The landed aristocracy, far from dis-
appearing, was on the contrary invigorated
by new elements.

The disappearance of the small free pro-
prietors continued. It seems, in fact, that
as early as the start of the Carolingian
period only a very small number of them
still existed in Gaul. Charlemagne in vain
took measures to safeguard those who were
left. The need of protection inevitably made
them turn to the more powerful individuals
to whose patronage they subordinated their
persons and their possessions.

Large estates, then, kept on being more
and more generally in evidence after the
period of the invasions. The favor which
the kings showed the Church was an addi-
tional factor in this development, and the
religious fervor of the aristocracy had the
same effect. Monasteries, whose number

24

HENRI PIRENNE

multiplied with such remarkable rapidity
after the seventh century, were receiving
bountiful gifts of land. Everywhere eccle-
siastical demesnes and lay demesnes were
mixed up together, uniting not only culti-
vated ground, but woods, heaths and waste-
lands.

The organization of these demesnes
remained in conformity, in Prankish Gaul,
with what it had been in Roman Gaul.
It is clear that this could not have been
otherwise. The Germanic tribes had no
motive for, and were, furthermore, incapa-
ble of, substituting a different organization.
It consisted, in its essentials, of classifying
all the land in two groups, subject to two
distinct forms of government. The first, the
less extensive, was directly exploited by
the proprietor; the second was divided,
under deeds of tenure, among the peasants.
Each of the villae of which a demesne was
composed comprised both seignorial land
and censal land, divided in units of cultiva-
tion held by hereditary right by manants or
villeins in return for the prestation of rents,
in money or in kind, and statute-labor.

As long as urban life and commerce
flourished, the great demesnes had a market
for the disposal of their produce. There is
no room for doubt that during all the
Merovingian era it was through them that
the city groups were provisioned and that
the merchants were supplied. But it could
not help be otherwise when trade disap-
peared and therewith the merchant class
and the municipal population. The great
estates suffered the same fate as the Prankish
Empire. Like it, they lost their markets.
The possibility of selling abroad existed no
longer because of the lack of buyers, and it
became useless to continue to produce more
than the indispensable minimum for the
subsistence of the men, proprietors or ten-
ants, living on the estate.

For an economy of exchange was substi-
tuted an economy of consumption. Each
demesne, in place of continuing to deal
with the outside, constituted from this time
on a little world of its own. It lived by
itself and for itself, in the traditional immo-

bility of a patriarchal form of government.
The ninth century is the golden age of
what w r e have calied the closed domestic
economy and which we might call, with
more exactitude, the economy of no markets.

This economy, in which production had
no other aim than the sustenance of the
demesnial group and which in consequence
was absolutely foreign to the idea of profit,
can not be considered as a natural and
spontaneous phenomenon. It was, on the
contrary, merely the result of an evolution
which forced it to take this characteristic
form. The great proprietors did not give up
selling the products of their lands of their
own free will; they stopped because they
could not do otherwise. Certainly if com-
merce had continued to supply them regu-
larly with the means of disposing of these
products abroad, they would not have neg-
lected to profit thereby. They did not sell
because they could not sell, and they could
not sell because markets were wanting. The
closed demesnial organization, w 7 hich made
its appearance at the beginning of the ninth
century, was a phenomenon due to compul-
sion. That is merely to say that it was an
abnormal phenomenon.

This can be most effectively shown by
comparing the picture, which Carolingian
Europe presents, with that of Southern
Foissia at the same era.

We know that bands of sea-faring Norse-
men, that is to say of Scandinavians origi-
nally from Sweden, established their domi-
nation over the Slavs of the watershed of
the Dnieper during the course of the ninth
century. These conquerors, whom the con-
quered designated by the name of Russians,
naturally had to congregate in groups in
order to insure their safety in the midst of
the populations they had subjected.

For this purpose they built fortified en-
closures, called gorods in the Slavic tongue,
where they settled with their princes and
the images of their gods. The most ancient
Russian cities owe their origin to these
entrenched camps. There were such camps
at Smolensk, Suzdal and Novgorod; the
most important and the most civilized was

From Medieval Cities

25

at Kiev, the prince of which ranked above
all the other princes. The subsistence of the
invaders was assured by tributes levied on
the native population.

It was therefore possible for the Russians
to live off the land, without seeking abroad
to supplement the resources which the
country gave them in abundance. They
would have done so, without doubt, and
been content to use the prestations of their
subjects if they had found it impossible, like
their contemporaries in Western Europe, to
communicate with the exterior. But the
position which they occupied must have
early led them to practise an economy of
exchange.

Southern Russia was placed, as a matter
of fact, between two regions of a superior
civilization. To the east, beyond the Caspian
Sea, extended the Caliphate of Bagdad; to
the south, the Black Sea bathed the coasts
of the Byzantine Empire and pointed the
way towards Constantinople. The barbar-
ians felt at once the effect of these two
strong centers of attraction. To be sure, they
were in the highest degree energetic, enter-
prising and adventurous, but their native
qualities only served to turn circumstances
to the best account. Arab merchants, Jews,
and Byzantines were already frequenting
the Slavic regions when they took posses-
sion, and showed them the route to follow.
They themselves did not hesitate to plunge
along it under the spur of the love of gain,
quite as natural to primitive man as to
civilized.

The country they occupied placed at
their disposal products particularly well
suited for trade with rich empires accus-
tomed to the refinements of life. Its immense
forests furnished them with a quantity of
honey, precious in those days when sugar
was still unknown, and furs, sumptuousness
in which was a requisite, even in southern
climes, of luxurious dress and equipment.

Slaves were easier still to procure and,
thanks to the Moslem harems and the great
houses or Byzantine workshops, had a sale
as sure as it was remunerative. Thus as early
as the ninth century, while the Empire of

Charlemagne was kept in isolation after the
closing of the Mediterranean, Southern
Russia on the contrary was induced to sell
her products in the two great markets which
exercised their attraction on her. The
paganism of the Scandinavians of the
Dnieper left them free of the religious
scruples which prevented the Christians of
the west from having dealings with the
Moslems. Belonging neither to the faith of
Christ nor to that of Mahomet, they only
asked to get rich, in dealing impartially
with the followers of either.

The importance of the trade which they
kept up as much with the Moslem Empire
as with the Greek, is made clear by the
extraordinary number of Arab and Byzan-
tine coins discovered in Russia and which
mark, like a golden compass needle, the
direction of the commercial routes.

In the region of Kiev they followed to
the south the course of the Dnieper, to the
east the Volga, and to the north the direc-
tion marked by the Western Dvina or the
lakes which abut the Gulf of Bothnia.
Information from Jewish or Arab travellers
and from Byzantine writers fortunately
supplements the data from archaeological
records. It will suffice here to give a brief
resume of what Constantine Porphyrogene-
tus 2 reports in the ninth century. He shows
the Russians assembling their boats at Kiev
each year after the ice melts. Their flotilla
slowly descends the Dnieper, whose numer-
ous cataracts present obstacles that have to
be avoided by dragging the barks along the

J OO O O

banks. The sea once reached, they sail
before the wind along the coasts towards
Constantinople, the supreme goal of their
long and perilous voyage. There the Russian
merchants had a special quarter and made
commercial treaties, the oldest of which
dates back to the ninth century, regulating
their relations with the population. Many
of them, seduced by its attractions, settled
down there and took service in the Imperial

2 Byzantine Emperor (912-959) and scholar who
wrote or inspired several works which provide
much of our knowledge of his time. [Editor's note]

26

HENRI PIRENNE

Guard, as had done, before that time, the
Germans in the legions of Rome.

The City of the Emperors (CzarogracT)
had for the Russians a fascination the
influence of which has lasted across the
centuries. It was from her that they received
Christianity (957-1015); it was from her
that they borrowed their art, their writing,
the use of money and a good part of their
administrative organization. Nothing more
is needed to demonstrate the role played
by Byzantine commerce in their social life.
It occupied so essential a place therein that
without it their civilization would remain
inexplicable. To be sure, the forms in which
it is found are very primitive, but the
important thing is not the forms of this
traffic; it is the effect it had.

Among the Russians of the late Middle
Ages it actually determined the constitution
of society. By striking contrast with what
has been shown to be the case with their
contemporaries of Carolingian Europe, not
only the importance but the very idea of
real estate was unknown to them. Their
notion of wealth comprised only personal
property, of which slaves were the most
valuable. They were not interested in land
except in so far as, by their control of it,
they were able to appropriate its products.
And if this conception was that of a class
of warrior-conquerors, there is but little
doubt that it was held for so long because
these warriors were, at the same time,
merchants. We might, incidentally, add
that the concentration of the Russians in
the gorods t motivated in the beginning by
military necessity, is itself found to fit
in admirably with commercial needs. An
organization created by barbarians for the
purpose of keeping conquered populations
under the yoke was well adapted to the sort
of life which theirs became after they gave
heed to the economic attraction of Byzan-
tium and Bagdad. Their example shows
that a society does not necessarily have to
pass through an agrarian stage before giving
itself over to commerce. Here commerce
appears as an original phenomenon. And if
this is so, it is because the Russians instead

of finding themselves isolated from the out-
side world like Western Europe were on
the contrary pushed or, to use a better word,
drawn into contact with it from the begin-
ning. Out of this derive the violent contrasts
which are disclosed in comparing their
social state with that of the Carolingian
Empire: in place of a demesnial aristocracy,
a commercial aristocracy; in place of serfs
bound to the soil, slaves considered as
instruments of work; in place of a popula-
tion living in the country, a population
gathered together in towns; in place, finally,
of a simple economy of consumption, an
economy of exchange and a regular and
permanent commercial activity.

That these outstanding contrasts were
the result of circumstances which gave
Russia markets while depriving the Caro-
lingian Empire of them, history clearly
demonstrates. The activity of Russian trade
was maintained, indeed, only as long as the
routes to Constantinople and Bagdad re-
mained open before it. It was not fated to
withstand the crisis which the Petchenegs
brought about in the eleventh century. The
invasion of these barbarians along the shores
of the Caspian and the Black Seas brought
in their train consequences identical to
those which the invasion of Islam in the
Mediterranean had had for Western Europe
in the eighth century.

Just as the latter cut the communications
between Gaul and the East, the former cut
the communications between Russia and
her foreign markets. And in both quarters,
the results of this interruption coincide with
a singular exactitude. In Russia as in Gaul,
when means of communication disappeared
and towns were depopulated and the popu-
lace forced to find near at hand the means
of their subsistence, a period of agricultural
economy was substituted for a period of
commercial economy. Despite the differ-
ences in details, it was the same picture in
both cases. The regions of the south, ruined
and troubled by the barbarians, gave way
in importance to the regions of the north.
Kiev fell into a decline as Marseilles had
fallen, and the center of the Russian State

From Medieval Cities

27

was removed to Moscow just as the center
of the Prankish State, with the Carolingian
dynasty, had been removed to the watershed
of the Rhine. And to end by making the
parallel still more conclusive, there arose,
in Russia as in Gaul, a landed aristocracy,
and a demesnial system was organized in
which the impossibility of exporting or of
selling forced production to be limited to
the needs of the proprietor and his peasants.
So, in both cases, the same causes pro-
duced the same effects. But they did not
produce them at the same date. Russia was

living by trade at an era when the Carolin-
gian Empire knew only the demesnial
regime, and she in turn inaugurated this
form of government at the very moment
when Western Europe, having found new
markets, broke away from it. We shall
examine further how this break was accom-
plished. It will suffice for the moment to
have proved, by the example of Russia, the
theory that the economy of the Carolingian
era was not the result of an internal evolu-
tion but must be attributed to the closing
of the Mediterranean by Islam.

From MOHAMMED AND CHARLEMAGNE

HENRI PIRENNE

WESTERN EUROPE BEFORE ISLAM

XDM whatever standpoint we regard it,
hen, the period inaugurated by the
establishment of the Barbarians within the
Empire introduced no absolute historical
innovation. 1 What the Germans destroyed
was not the Empire, but the Imperial gov-
ernment in 'parties occidentis. They them-
selves acknowledged as much by installing
themselves as foederati. Far from seeking
to replace the Empire by anything new,
they established themselves within it 7 and
although their settlement was accompanied
by a process of serious degradation, they
did not introduce a new scheme of govern-
ment; the ancient palazzo, so to speak, was
divided up into apartments, but it still sur-
vived as a building. In short, the essential
character of "Romania" still remained
Mediterranean. The frontier territories,
which remained Germanic, and England,
played no part in it as yet; it is a mistake
to regard them at this period as a point of
departure. Considering matters as they
actually were, we see that the great novelty
of the epoch was a political fact: in the
Occident a plurality of States had replaced
the unity of the Roman State. And this,
of course, was a very considerable novelty.
The aspect of Europe was changing, but

1 These things were retained : the language, the
currency, writing (papyrus), weights and meas-
ures, the lands of foodstuffs in common use, the
social classes, the religion the role of Arianism
has been exaggerated art, the law, the admin-
istration, the taxes, the economic organization.
[Pirenne's note]

the fundamental character of its life re-
mained the same. These States, which have
been described as national States, were not
really national at all, but were merely frag-
ments of the great unity which they had
replaced. There was no profound transfor-
mation except in Britain.

There the Emperor and the civilization
of the Empire had disappeared. Nothing
remained of the old tradition. A new world
had made its appearance. The old law and
language and institutions were replaced by
those of the Germans. A civilization of a
new type was manifesting itself, which we
may call the Nordic or Germanic civiliza-
tion. It was completely opposed to the
Mediterranean civilization syncretized in
the Late Empire, that last form of antiquity.
Here was no trace of the Roman State with
its legislative ideal, its civil population, and
its Christian religion, but a society which
had preserved the blood tie between its
members; the family community, with all
the consequences which it entailed in law
and morality and economy; a paganism like
that of the heroic poems; such vere the
things that constituted the originality of
these Barbarians, who had thrust back the
ancient world in order to take its place.
In Britain a new age was beginning, which
did not gravitate towards the South. The
man of the North had conquered and taken
for his own this extreme corner of that
"Romania" of which he had no memories,
whose majesty he repudiated, and to which

From Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (London, 1939), pp. 140-144, 147-150, 265-
285. By permission of George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

28

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

29

he owed nothing. In every sense of the
word he replaced it, and in replacing it he
destroyed it.

The Anglo-Saxon invaders came into the
Empire fresh from their Germanic environ-
ment, and had never been subjected to the
influences of Rome. Further, the province
of Britain, in which they had established
themselves, was the least Romanized of all
the provinces. In Britain, therefore, they
remained themselves: the Germanic, Nor-
dic, Barbarian soul of peoples whose cul-
ture might almost be called Homeric has
been the essential factor in the history of
this country.

But the spectacle presented by this
Anglo-Saxon Britain was unique. We
should seek in vain for anything like it on
the Continent. There "Romania" still ex-
isted, except on the frontier, or along the
Rhine, in the decumate lands, and along
the Danube that is to say, in the prov-
inces of Germania, Raetia, Noricum and
Pannonia, all close to that Germania whose
inhabitants had overflowed into the Empire
and driven it before them. But these border
regions played no part of their own, since
they were attached to States which had
been established, like that of the Franks or
the Ostrogoths, in the heart of "Romania."
And there it is plain that the old state of
affairs still existed. The invaders, too few
in number, and also too long in contact
with the Empire were inevitably absorbed,
and they asked nothing better. What may
well surprise us is that there was so little
Germanism in the new States, all of which
were ruled by Germanic dynasties. Lan-
"guage, religion, institutions and art were
entirely, or almost entirely, devoid of Ger-
manism. We find some Germanic influ-
ences in the law of those countries situated
to the north of the Seine and the Alps, but
until the Lombards arrived in Italy these
did not amount to very much. If some have
held a contrary belief, it is because they
have followed the Germanic school and
have wrongly applied to Gaul, Italy, and
Spain what they find in the Leges Bartjaro-
rum of the Salians, the Ripuarians and the

Bavarians. They have also extended to the
period which preceded the Carolingians
what is true only of the latter. Moreover,
they have exaggerated the role of Merovin-
gian Gaul by allowing themselves to be
governed by the thought of what it later
became, but as yet was not.

What was Clovis as compared with The-
odoric? And let it be noted that after Clovis
the Prankish kings, despite all their efforts,
could neither establish themselves in Italy,
nor even recapture the Narbonnaise from
the Visigoths. It is evident that they were
tending towards the Mediterranean. The
object of their conquest beyond the Rhine
was to defend their kingdom against the
Barbarians, and was far from having the
effect of Germanizing it. But to admit that
under the conditions of their establishment
in the Empire, and with the small forces
which they brought with them, the Visi-
goths, Burgundi, Ostrogoths, Vandals and
Franks could have intended to Germanize
the Empire is simply to admit the
impossible.

Moreover, we must not forget the part
played by the Church, within which Rome
had taken refuge, and which, in imposing
itself upon the Barbarians, was at the same
time imposing Rome upon them. In the
Occident, in the Roman world which had
become so disordered as a State, the Ger-
manic kings were, so to speak, points of
political crystallization. But the old, or shall
we say, the classic social equilibrium still
existed in the world about them, though it
had suffered inevitable losses.

In other words, the Mediterranean unity
which was the essential feature of this an-
cient world was maintained in all its vari-
ous manifestations. The increasing Helleni-
zation of the Orient did not prevent it from
continuing to influence the Occident by its
commerce, its art, and the vicissitudes of its
religious life. To a certain extent, as we
have seen, the Occident was becoming
Byzantinized.

And this explains Justinian's impulse of
reconquest, which almost restored the Med -
iterranean to the status of a Roman lake.

30

HENRI PIRENNE

And regarding it from our point of view,
it is, o course, plainly apparent that this
Empire could not last But this was not the
view of its contemporaries. The Lombard
invasion was certainly less important than
has been supposed. The striking thing
about it is its tardiness.

Justinian's Mediterranean policy - and it
really was a Mediterranean policy, since he
sacrificed to this policy his conflicts with
the Persians and the Slavs was in tune
with the Mediterranean spirit of European
civilization as a whole from the 5th to the
7th century. It is on the shores of this mare
nostrum that we find all the specific mani-
festations of the life of the epoch. Com-
merce gravitated toward the sea, as under
the Empire; there the last representatives
of the ancient literature Boetius, Cassio-
dorus WTOte their works; there, with
Caesarius of Aries, and Gregory the Great,
the new literature of the Church was born
and began to develop; there writers like
Isidore of Seville made the inventory of
civilization from which the Middle Ages
obtained their knowledge of antiquity;
there, at Lerins, or at Monte Cassino, mo-
nasticism, coining from the Orient, was
acclimatized to its Occidental environment;
from the shores of the Mediterranean came
the missionaries who converted England,
and it was there that arose the characteristic
monuments of that Hellenistico-Oriental

art which seemed destined to become the
art of the Occident, as it had remained that
of the Orient.

There was as yet nothing, in the 7th cen-
tury, that seemed to announce the end of
the community of civilization established
by the Roman Empire from the Pillars of
Hercules to the Aegean Sea and from the
shores of Egypt and Africa to those of Italy,
Gaul, and Spain. The new world had not
lost the Mediterranean character of the an-
cient world. All its activities were concen-
trated and nourished on the shores of the
Mediterranean.

There was nothing to indicate that the
millenary evolution of society was to be
suddenly interrupted. No one was antici-
pating a catastrophe. Although the imme-
diate successors of Justinian were unable
to continue his work, they did not repudi-
ate it. They refused to make any concession
to the Lombards; they feverishly fortified
Africa; they established their themes there
as in Italy; their policies took account of
the Franks and the Visigoths alike; their
fleet controlled the sea; and the Pope of
Rome regarded them as his Sovereigns.

The greatest intellect of the Occident,
Gregory the Great, Pope from 590 to 604,
saluted the Emperor Phocas, in 603, as
reigning only over free men, while the
kings of the Occident reigned only over
slaves. . . .

THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM IN THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN

THE ISLAMIC INVASION

Nothing could be more suggestive, noth-
ing could better enable us to comprehend
the expansion of Islam in the 7th century,
than to compare its effect upon the Roman
Empire with that of the Germanic inva-
sions. These latter invasions were the
climax of a situation which was as old as
the Empire, and indeed even older, and
which had weighed upon it more or less
heavily throughout its history. When the
Empire, its frontiers penetrated, abandoned
the struggle, the invaders promptly allowed

themselves to become absorbed in it, and as
far as possible they maintained its civiliza-
tion, and entered into the community upon
which this civilization was based.

On the other hand, before the Moham-
medan epoch the Empire had had practi-
cally no dealings with the Arabian penin-
sula. It contented itself with building a
wall to protect Syria against the nomadic
bands of the desert, much as it had built a
wall in the north of Britain in order to
check the invasions of the Picts; but this
Syrian limes, some remains of which may

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

31

still be seen on crossing the desert, was in
no way comparable to that of the Rhine or
the Danube.

The Empire had never regarded this as
one of its vulnerable points, nor had it ever
massed there any large proportion of its
military forces. It was a frontier of inspec-
tion, which was crossed by the caravans
that brought perfumes and spices. The
Persian Empire, another of Arabia's neigh-
bours, had taken the same precaution. After
all, there was nothing to fear from the
nomadic Bedouins of the Peninsula, whose
civilization was still in the tribal stage,
whose religious beliefs were hardly better
than fetichism, and who spent their time
in making war upon one another, or pillag-
ing the caravans that travelled from south
to north, from Yemen to Palestine, Syria
and the Peninsula of Sinai, passing through
Mecca and Yathreb (the future Medina).

Preoccupied by their secular conflict,
neither the Roman nor the Persian Empire
seems to have had any suspicion of the
propaganda by which Mohammed, amidst
the confused conflicts of the tribes, was on
the point of giving his own people a reli-
gion which it would presently cast upon
the world, while imposing its own do-
minion. The Empire was already in deadly
danger when John of Damascus was still
regarding Islam as a sort of schism, of much
the same character as previous heresies.

When Mohammed died, in 632, there
was as yet no sign of the peril which was
to manifest itself in so overwhelming a
fashion a couple of years later. No meas-
ures had been taken to defend the frontier.
It is evident that whereas the Germanic
menace had always attracted the attention
of the Emperors, the Arab onslaught took
them by surprise. In a certain sense, the
expansion of Islam was due to chance, if
we can give this name to the unpredictable
consequence of a combination of causes.
The success of the attack is explained by
the exhaustion of the two Empires which
marched with Arabia, the Roman and the
Persian, at the end of the long struggle
between them, which had at last culmi-

nated in the victory of Heraclius over
Chosroes (d. 627).

Byzantium had just reconquered its pres-
tige, and its future seemed assured by the
fall of the secular enemy and the restora-
tion to the Empire of Syria, Palestine and
Egypt. The Holy Cross, which had long
ago been carried off, was now triumphantly
restored to Constantinople by the con-
queror. The sovereign of India sent his
felicitations, and the king of the Franks,
Dagobert, concluded a perpetual peace with
him. After this it was natural to expect that
Heraclius would continue the Occidental
policy of Justinian. It was true that the
Lombards had occupied a portion of Italy,
and the Visigoths, in 624, recaptured from
Byzantium its last outposts in Spain; but
what was that compared with the tremen-
dous recovery which had just been accom-
plished in the Orient"?

However, the effort, which was doubt-
less excessive, had exhausted the Empire.
The provinces which Persia had just sur-
rendered were suddenly wrested from the
Empire by Islam. Heraclius (610-641)
was doomed to be a helpless spectator of
the first onslaught of this new force which
was about to disconcert and bewilder the
Western world.

The Arab conquest, which brought con-
fusion upon both Europe and Asia, was
without precedent. The swiftness of its
victory is comparable only with that by
which the Mongol Empires of Attila,
Jenghiz Khan and Tamerlane were estab-
lished. But these Empires were as ephem-
eral as the conquest of Islam was lasting.
This religion still has its faithful today in
almost every country where it was imposed
by the first Caliphs. The lightning-like ra-
pidity of its diffusion was a veritable mira-
cle as compared with the slow progress of
Christianity.

By the side of this irruption, what were
the conquests, so long delayed., of the Ger-
mans, who, after centuries of effort, had
succeeded only in nibbling at the edge of
"Romania"?

The Arabs, on the other hand, took pos-

32

HENRI PIRENNE

session of whole sections of the crumbling
Empire. In 634 they seized the Byzantine
fortress of Bothra (Bosra) in Transjordania;
in 635 Damascus fell hefore them; in 636
the battle of Yarmok gave them the whole
of Syria; in 637 or 638 Jerusalem opened
its gates to them, while at the same time
their Asiatic conquests included Mesopo-
tamia and Persia. Then it was the turn of
Egypt to be attacked; and shortly after the
death of Heraclius (641) Alexandria was
taken, and before long the whole country
was occupied. Next the invasion, still con-
tinuing, submerged the Byzantine posses-
sions in North Africa.

All this may doubtless be explained by
the fact that the invasion was unexpected,

by the disorder of the Byzantine armies,
disorganized and surprised by a new
method of fighting, by the religious and
national discontent of the Monophysites
and Nestorians of Syria, to whom the Em-
pire had refused to make any concessions,
and of the Coptic Church of Egypt, and
by the weakness of the Persians. But all
these reasons are insufficient to explain so
complete a triumph. The intensity of the
results were out of all proportion to the
numerical strength of the conquerors. . . . 2

2 For further analysis of the Arab conquest the
student is referred to the selections from Medieval
Cities which summarize the more comprehensive
treatment in Mohammed and Charlemagne. [Edi-
tor's note]

MEROVINGIANS AND CAROLINGIANS

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Many historians regard what they call
the Prankish epoch as constituting an un-
broken whole, so that they describe the
Carolingian period as the continuation and
development of the Merovingian. But in
this they are obviously mistaken, and for
several reasons.

1st. The Merovingian period belongs to
a milieu entirely different from that of the
Carolingian period. In the 6th and 7th cen-
turies there was still a Mediterranean with
which the Merovingians were constantly in
touch, and the Imperial tradition still sur-
vived in many domains of life.

2nd. The Germanic influence, confined
to the vicinity of the Northern frontier,
was very feeble, and made itself felt only
in certain branches of the law and of
procedure.

3rd. Between the more glorious Mero-
vingian period, which lasted until nearly
the middle of the 7th century, and the
Carolingian period, there was a full cen-
tury of turbid decadence, in the course of
which many of the features of the ancient
civilizations disappeared, while others were
further elaborated; and it was in this de-

cadence that the Carolingian period had its
origin. The ancestors of the Carolingians
were not Merovingian kings, but the
mayors of the palace. Charlemagne was
not in any sense the successor of Dagobert, 3
but of Charles Martel and Pippin.

4th. We must not be confused by the
identity of the name regnum Francomm.
The new kingdom stretched as far as the
Elbe and included part of Italy. It con-
tained almost as many Germanic as Ro-
manic populations.

5th. Lastly, its relations with the Church
were completely modified. The Merovin-
gian State, like the Roman Empire, was
secular. The Merovingian king was rex
Francorum. The Carolingian king was Dei
gratia rex Francormn, 4 and this little addi-
tion indicates a profound transformation.
So great was this transformation that later
generations did not realize the significance

3 Dagobert, Franldsh king, ca. 629-639, was the
last of the Merovingians to rule as well as reign.
[Editor's note]

4 This had not yet become the regulation formula
under Pippin, hut it was always employed from
the beginning of Charlemagne's reign. Giry,
Manuel de Diplomatique, p. 318. [Pirenne's note]

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

33

of the Merovingian usage. Later copyists
and forgers embellished what seemed to
them the inadmissible title of the Merovin-
gian kings with a Dei gratia.

Thus, the two monarchies the second
of which, as I have endeavoured to show
in these pages, was due in some sort to the
submersion of the European world by
Islam were far from being continuous,
but were mutually opposed.

In the great crisis which led to the col-
lapse of the State founded by Clovis, the
Roman foundations crumbled away to
nothing.

The first to go was the very conception
of the royal power. This, of course, in the
form which it assumed under the Merovin-
gians, was not a mere transposition of the
Imperial absolutism. I am quite willing to
admit that the royal power was, to a great
extent, merely a de facto despotism. Never-
theless, for the king, as for his subjects, the
whole power of the State was concentrated
in the monarch.

All that belonged to him was sacred; he
could put himself above the law, and no
one could gainsay him; he could blind his
enemies and confiscate their estates under
the pretext that they were guilty of Use-
majeste. There was nothing, there was no
one that he need consider. The power most
resembling his own was that of the Byzan-
tine Emperor, if we take into account the
enormous differences due to the unequal
levels of the two civilizations.

All the Merovingian administrations pre-
served, for good or ill, the bureaucratic
character of the Roman administration. The
Merovingian chancellery, with its lay refer-
endars, was modelled upon that of Rome;
the king picked his agents where he chose,
even from among his slaves; his bodyguard
of antrustions was reminiscent of the Pre-
torian guard. And to tell the truth, the
populations over whom he reigned had no
conception of any other form of govern-
ment. It was the government of all the
kings of the period, Ostrogothic, Visigothic,
Vandal. It should be noted that even when
the kings assassinated one another the

peoples did not revolt. Ambitious men com-
mitted murder, but there were no popular
risings.

The cause of the Merovingian decadence
was the increasing weakness of the royal
power. And this weakness, by which the
Carolingians profited, was due to the dis-
order of the financial administration, and
this again was completely Roman. For, as
we have seen, the king's treasury was nour-
ished mainly by the impost. And with the
disappearance of the gold currency, during
the great crisis of the 8th century, this
impost also disappeared. The very notion of
the public impost was forgotten when the
curiales of the cities disappeared.

The monetarii who forwarded this im-
post to the treasury in the form of gold
solidi no longer existed. I think the last
mention of them refers to the reign of
Pippin. Thus the mayors of the palace no
longer received the impost. The monarchy
which they established by their coup d'etat
was a monarchy in which the Roman con-
ception of the public impost was abolished.

The kings of the new dynasty, like the
kings of the Middle Ages long after them,
had no regular resources apart from the
revenues of their domains. There were still
prestations, of course, which dated from the
Roman epoch, and in particular the tonlieu.
But all these were diminishing. The droit
de gite was exercised by the functionaries
rather than by the king. 5 As for the tonlieu ?
which brought in less and less as the circu-
lation of goods diminished, the kings made
donations of it to the abbeys and the grandi.

Some writers have attempted to prove
the existence of an impost under the Caro-
lingians, As a matter of fact, there was a
custom of annual "gifts" in the Germanic
portion of the Empire. And, further, the
kings decreed collections and levies of silver
at the time of the Norman invasions. But
these were expedients which were not con-
tinued. In reality, it must be repeated, the
basis of the king's financial power was his

5 The tonlieu was a market toll; the droit de gtte
was the feudal right of lodging. [Editor s note]

34

HENRI PIRENNE

domain, his fisc, if you will. To this, at
least, in the case oF Charlemagne, we must
add the booty taken in time of war. The
ordinary basis of the royal power was purely
rural. This was why the mayors of the
palace confiscated so many ecclesiastical
estates. The king was, and had to remain,
if he was to maintain his power, the great-
est landowner in the kingdom. No more
surveys of lands, no more registers of taxes,
no more financial functionaries; hence no
more archives, no more offices, no more
accounts. The kings no longer had any
finances; this, it will be realized, was some-
thing new. The Merovingian king bought
or paid men with gold; the Carolingian
king had to give them fragments of his
domain. This was a serious cause of weak-
ness, which was offset by booty as long
as the country was at war under Charle-
magne, but soon after his reign the conse-
quences made themselves felt. And here,
let it be repeated, there was a definite break
with the financial tradition of the Romans,

To this first essential difference between
the Merovingians and the Carolingians an-
other must be added. The new king, as we
have seen, was king by the grace of God.
The rite of consecration, introduced under
Pippin, made him in some sort a sacerdotal
personage. The Merovingian was in every
sense a secular king. The Carolingian w r as
crowned only by the intervention of the
Church, and the king, by virtue of his con-
secration, entered into the Church. He had
now a religious ideal, and there were limits
to his power the limits imposed by Chris-
tian morality. We see that the kings no
longer indulged in the arbitrary assassina-
tions and the excesses of personal power
which were everyday things in the Mero-
vingian epoch. For proof we have only to
read the De rectoribus Christianis of Se-
dulius of Liege, or the De via regia of
Smaragdus, written, according to Ebert, be-
tween 806 and 813.

Through the rite of consecration the
Church obtained a hold over the king.
Henceforth the secular character of the
State was kept in the background. Here

two texts of Hincmar 6 may be cited. "It is
to the unction, an episcopal and a spiritual
act," he wrote to Charles the Bald in 868;
"it is to this benediction, far more than to
your earthly power, that you owe the royal
dignity." We read further, in the Acts of
the Council of Sainte-Macre : "The dignity
of the pontiffs is above that of the kings:
for the kings are consecrated by the pon-
tiffs, while the pontiffs cannot be conse-
crated by the kings." After consecration
the king owed certain duties to the Church.
According to Smaragdus, he had to en-
deavour with all his might to remedy any
defects that had crept into it. But he had
also to protect it and to see that the tithe
was paid to it.

It will be understood that under these
conditions the monarchy acted in associa-
tion with the Church. We have only to
read the Capitularies to realize that these
were as much concerned with ecclesiastical
discipline and morality as with secular
administration.

In the eyes of the Carolingian kings to
administer their subjects meant to imbue
them with ecclesiastical morality. We have
already seen that their economic concep-
tions were dominated by the Church. The
bishops were their councillors and officials.
The kings entrusted them with the func-
tions of missi and filled their chancellery
with clerics. Here is a striking contrast with
the Merovingians, who rewarded their lay
referendaries by making them bishops.
From the time of Hitherius, the first eccle-
siastic to enter the chancellery under Char-
lemagne, no more laymen were employed
there for centuries. Bresslau is mistaken in
his belief that the invasion of the palace
offices by the Church is explained by the
fact that the first Carolingians wished to
replace the Roman personnel of the Mero-
vingians by an Austrasian personnel, and
that they had to engage Austrasian clerics
as being the only Austrasians who could

6 Hincmar was a celebrated Archbishop of Rheims,
845-882; Charles the Bald was the West Prankish
King, 840-877. [Editor's note]

From Mohammed and, Charlemagne

35

read and write. No: they wanted to make
sure of the collaboration of the Church.

However, it is true that they had to seek
men of education among the clerics. Dur-
ing the crisis the education of laymen was
discontinued. The mayors themselves were
unable to write. The platonic efforts of
Charlemagne to spread education among
the people came to nothing, and the palace
academy had only a few pupils. A period
was commencing in which "cleric" and
"scholar" were synonymous; hence the im-
portance of the Church, which, in a king-
dom where hardly anyone had retained any
knowledge of Latin, was able for centuries
to impose its language on the administra-
tion. We have to make an effort to under-
stand the true significance of this fact; it
was tremendous. Here we perceive the ap-
pearance of a new medieval characteristic:
here was a religious caste which imposed
its influence upon the State.

And in addition to this religious caste,
the king had to reckon with the military
class, which comprised the whole of the lay
aristocracy, and all such freemen as had
remained independent. Of course, we have
glimpses of the rise of this military class
under the Merovingian kings. But the aris-
tocracy of the Merovingian epoch was
strangely unlike that of the Carolingian
era. The great Roman landowners, the
senatores, whether they resided in the cities
or in the country, do not give one the im-
pression that they were primarily soldiers.
They were educated. Above all things,
they sought employment in the palace or
the Church. It is probable that the king
recruited his army leaders and the soldiers
of his bodyguard more particularly among
his Germanic antrustions. It is certain that
the landowning aristocracy lost no time in
attempting to dominate him. But it never
succeeded in doing so.

We do not find that the king governed
by means of this aristocracy, nor that he
allowed it any share in the government as
long as he remained powerful. And even
though he conferred immunity upon it, he
did not surrender either to the aristocracy

or to the churches any of the rights of the
crown. As a matter of fact, he had at his dis-
posal two terrible weapons against it: prose-
cution for lese-majeste and confiscation.

But in order to hold his own against this
aristocracy it is obvious that the king had
to remain extremely powerful: in other
words, extremely wealthy. For the aristoc-
racy-like the Church, for that matter
was constantly increasing its authority over
the people. This social development, which
began in the days of the late Empire, was
continuing. The grandi had their private
soldiers, numerous vassi who had recom-
mended themselves to them (had applied
to them for protection), and who consti-
tuted a formidable following.

In the Merovingian period the seigneu-
rial authority of the landowners was mani-
fested only within the limits of their pri-
vate rights. But in the period of anarchy
and decadence, when war broke out be-
tween the mayors of the palace, who were
backed by factions of aristocrats, the insti-
tution of vassalage underwent a transforma-
tion. It assumed an increasing importance,
and its military character became plainly
apparent when the Carolingian triumphed
over his rivals. From the time of Charles
Martel the power exercised by the king was
essentially based on his military vassals in
the North.

He gave them benefices that is to say,
estates in exchange for military service,
and these estates he confiscated from the
churches. "Now," says Guilhiermoz, 7 owing
to their importance, these concessions to
vassals were henceforth found to tempt, not
only persons of mean or moderate condi-
tion, but the great" .

And this was entirely in the interest of
the grantor, who henceforth gave large
benefices "on the condition that the conces-
sionaire served him, not only with his own
person, but with a number of vassals in
proportion to the importance of the bene-
fice conceded," It was undoubtedly by such

7 Guilhiermoz, Essa i sur les origines de la noblesse.
p. 125.

HENRI PIRENNE

means that Charles Martel was able to re-
cruit the powerful Austrasian following
with which he went to war. And the sys-
tem was continued after his time.

In the 9th century the kings exacted an
oath of vassalage from all the magnates of
the kingdom, and even from the bishops.
It became increasingly apparent that only
those were truly submissive to the king who
had paid homage to him. Thus the subject
was disappearing behind the vassal, and
Hincmar went so far as to warn Charles
the Bald of the consequent danger to the
royal authority. The necessity in which the
first mayors of the palace found themselves,
of providing themselves with loyal troops,
consisting of sworn beneficiaries, led to a
profound transformation of the State. For
henceforth the king would be compelled to
reckon with his vassals, w r ho constituted the
military strength of the State. The organi-
zation of the counties fell into disorder,
since the vassals were not amenable to the
jurisdiction of the count. In the field they
commanded their own vassals themselves;
the count led only the freemen to battle. It
is possible that their domains were exempt
from taxation. They were known as opti-
mates regis.

The chronicle of Moissac, in 813, called
them senatus or majores natu Franco-rum,
and together with the high ecclesiastics and
the counts they did indeed form the king's
council. The king, therefore, allowed them
to partake of his political power. The State
was becoming dependent on the contrac-
tual bonds established between the king
and his vassals.

This was the beginning of the feudal
period.

All might still have been well if the king
could have retained his vassals. But at the
close of the 9th century, apart from those
of his own domain, they had become sub-
ject to the suzerainty of the counts. For as
the royal power declined, from the time of
the civil wars which marked the end of the
reign of Louis the Pious, the counts became
more and more independent. The only rela-
tion which existed between them and the

king was that of the vassal to his suzerain.
They collected the regalia for the king; and
sometimes they combined several counties
into one. 8 The monarchy lost its adminis-
trative character, becoming transformed
into a Hoc of independent principalities,
attached to the king by a bond of vassalage
which he could no longer force his vassals
to respect. The kings allowed the royal
power to slip through their fingers.

And it was inevitable that it should be
so. We must not be misled by the prestige
of Charlemagne. He was still able to rule
the State by virtue of his military power,
his wealth, which was derived from booty,
and his de facto pre-eminence in the
Church. These things enabled him to reign
without systematic finances, and to exact
obedience from functionaries who, being
one and all great landowners, could very
well have existed in independence. But
what is the value of an administration
which is no longer salaried? How can it be
prevented from administering the country,
if it chooses, for its own benefit, and not
for the king's? Of what real use were such
inspectors as the missi? Charles undoubt-
edly intended to administer the kingdom,
but was unable to do so. When we read the
capitularies, we are struck by the difference
between what they decreed and what was
actually effected. Charles decreed that
everyone should send his sons to school;
that there should be only one mint; that
usurious prices should be abolished in time
of famine. He established maximum prices.
But it was impossible to realize all these
things, because to do so would have pre-
supposed the obedience which could not
be assured of the grandi, who were con-
scious of their independence, or of the
bishops, who, when Charlemagne was
dead, proclaimed the superiority of the
spiritual over the temporal power.

The economic basis of the State did not
correspond with the administrative charac-
ter which Charlemagne had endeavoured

8 In this connection the history of the formation
of the county o Flanders is highly characteristic.
[Pirenne's note]

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

to preserve. The economy of the State was
based upon the great domain without com-
mercial outlets.

The landowners had no need of security,
since they did not engage in commerce.
Such a form of property is perfectly con-
sistent with anarchy. Those who owned the
soil had no need of the king.

Was this why Charles had endeavoured
to preserve the class of humble freemen^
He made the attempt, but he was unsuc-
cessful. The great domain continued to ex-
pand, and liberty to disappear.

When the Normans began to invade the
country, the State was already powerless.
It was incapable of taking systematic meas-
ures of defence, and of assembling armies
which could have held their own against
the invaders. There was no agreement be-
tween the defenders. One may say with
Hartmann: Heer und Staat warden durch
die Grundherrschaft und das Lehnwesen
zersetzt.

What was left of the king's regalia he
misused. He relinquished the tonlieu, and
the right of the mint. Of its own accord the
monarchy divested itself of its remaining
inheritance, which was little enough. In
the end, royalty became no more than a
form. Its evolution was completed when
in France, with Hugh Capet, it became
elective.

INTELLECTUAL CIVILIZATION

As we have seen, the Germanic invasions
had not the effect of abolishing Latin as
the language of "Romania," except in
those territories where Salic and Ripuarian
Franks, Alamans, and Bavarians had estab-
lished themselves en masse. Elsewhere the
German immigrants became Romanized
with surprising rapidity.

The conquerors, dispersed about the
country, and married to native wives who
continued to speak their own language, all
learned the Latin tongue. They did not
modify it in any way, apart from introduc-
ing a good many terms relating to law, the
chase, war, and agriculture, which made
their way southwards from the Belgian re-

gions, where the Germans were numerous.

Even more rapid was the Romanization

of the Burgundi, Visigoths. Ostrogoths,

o ' o 7 o

Vandals and Lombards. According to
Gamillscheg, nothing was left of the Gothic
language when the Moors conquered Spain
but the names of persons and places.

On the other hand, the confusion into
which the Mediterranean world was
thrownjby the invasion of Islam resulted in
a profound transformation where language
was concerned. In Africa Latin was re-
placed by Arabic. In Spain, on the other
hand, it survived, but was deprived of its
foundations: there were no more schools
or monasteries, and there was no longer
an educated clergy. The conquered people
made use of a Roman patois which was not
a written language. Latin, which had sur-
vived so successfully in the Peninsula until
the eve of the conquest, disappeared;
people were beginning to speak Spanish.

In Italy, on the other hand, it resisted
more successfully; and a few isolated
schools survived in Rome and Milan.

But it is in Gaul that we can best observe
the extent of the confusion, and its causes.

The Latin of the Merovingian epoch
was, of course, barbarously incorrect; but
it was still a living Latin. It seems that it
was even taught in the schools where a
practical education was given, while here
and there the bishops and senators still read
and sometimes even tried to write the
classic Latin.

The Merovingian Latin was by no means
a vulgar language. It showed few signs of
Germanic influence. Those who spoke it
could make themselves understood, and un-
derstand others, in any part of "Romania/*
It was perhaps more incorrect in the North
of France than elsewhere, but nevertheless,
it was a spoken and written language. The
Church did not hesitate to employ it for the
purposes of propaganda, administration,,
and justice.

This language was taught in the schools.
Laymen learned and wrote it. Its relation
to the Latin of the Empire was like that of
the cursive in which it was written to the

HENRI PIRENNE

writing of the Roman epoch. And since it
was still written and extensively employed
for the purposes of administration and
commerce, it became stabilized.

But it was destined to disappear in the
course of the great disorders of the 8th cen-
tury. The political anarchy, the reorganiza-
tion of the Church, the disappearance of
the cities and of commerce and administra-
tion, especially the financial administration,
and of the secular schools, made its sur-
vival, with its Latin soul, impossible. It be-
came debased, and was transformed, accord-
ing to the region, into various Romanic
dialects. The details of the process are lost,
but it is certain that Latin ceased to be
spoken about the year 800, except by the
clergy.

Now, it was precisely at this moment,
when Latin ceased to be a living language,
and was replaced by the rustic idioms from
which the national languages are derived,
that it became what it was to remain
through the centuries: a learned language:
a novel mediaeval feature which dates from
the Carolingian epoch.

It is curious to note that the origin of this
phenomenon must be sought in the only
Romanic country in which the Germanic
invasion had completely extirpated Roman-
ism: in Britain, among the Anglo-Saxons.

The conversion of this country was or-
ganized, as we have seen, on the shores of
the Mediterranean, and not in the neigh-
bouring country of Gaul. It was the monks
of Augustine, despatched by Gregory the
Great in 596, who promoted the movement
already commenced by the Celtic monks
of Ireland.

In the 7th century Saint Theodore of
Tarsus and his companion Adrian enriched
the religion which they brought with them
by the Graeco-Roman traditions. A new
culture immediately began to evolve in the
island, a fact which Dawson rightly con-
siders "the most important event which oc-
curred between the epoch of Justinian and
that of Charlemagne." Among these purely
Germanic Anglo-Saxons the Latin culture
was introduced suddenly, together with

the Latin religion, and it profited by the
enthusiasm felt for the latter. No sooner
were they converted, under the influence
and guidance of Rome, than the Anglo-
Saxons turned their gaze toward the Sacred
City. They visited it continually, bringing
back relics and manuscripts. They sub-
mitted themselves to its suggestive influ-
ence, and learned its language, which for
them was no vulgar tongue, but a sacred
language, invested with an incomparable
prestige. As early as the 7th century there
were men among the Anglo-Saxons, like
the Venerable Bede and the poet Aldhelm,
whose learning was truly astonishing as
measured by the standards of Western
Europe.

The intellectual reawakening which took
place under Charlemagne must be attrib-
uted to the Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Be-
fore them, of course, there were the Irish
monks, including the greatest of all, Saint
Columban, the founder of Luxeuil and
Bobbio, who landed in Gaul about 590.
They preached asceticism in a time of
religious decadence, but we do not find
that they exercised the slightest literary
influence.

It was quite otherwise with the Anglo-
Saxons; their purpose was to propagate
Christianity in Germany, a country for
which the Merovingian Church had done
little or nothing. And this purpose coin-
cided with the policy of the Carolingians;
hence the enormous influence of Boniface,
the organizer of the Germanic Church,
and, by virtue of this fact, the intermediary
between the Pope and Pippin the Short.

Charlemagne devoted himself to the task
of literary revival simultaneously with that
of the restoration of the Church. The prin-
cipal representative of Anglo-Saxon cul-
ture, Alcuin, the head of the school of
York, entered Charlemagne's service in
782, as director of the palace school, and
henceforth exercised a decisive influence
over the literary movement of the time.

Thus, by the most curious reversal of
affairs, which affords the most striking proof
of the rupture effected by Islam, the North

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

in Europe replaced the South both as a
literary and as a political centre.

It was the North that now proceeded to
diffuse the culture which it had received
from the Mediterranean. Latin, which had
been a living language on the further side
of the Channel, was for the Anglo-Saxons,
from the beginning, merely the language of
the Church. The Latin which was taught
to the Anglo-Saxons was not the incorrect
business and administrative language,
adapted to the needs of secular life, but the
language which was still spoken in the
Mediterranean schools. Theodore came
from Tarsus in Cilicia, and had studied at
Athens before coming to Rome. Adrian,
an African by birth, was the abbot of a
monastery near Naples, and was equally
learned in Greek and in Latin.

It was the classic tradition that they
propagated among their neophytes, and a
correct Latin, which had no need, as on the
continent, to make concessions to common
usage in order to be understood, since the
people did not speak Latin, but Anglo-
Saxon. Thus, the English monasteries re-
ceived the heritage of the ancient culture
without intermediary. It was the same in
the 15th century, when the Byzantine
scholars brought to Italy, not the vulgar
Greek, the living language of the street,
but the classical Greek of the schools.

In this way the Anglo-Saxons became
simultaneously the reformers of the lan-
guage and also the reformers of the
Church. The barbarism into which the
Church had lapsed was manifested at once
by its bad morals, its bad Latin, its bad
singing, and its bad writing. To reform it
at all meant to reform all these things.
Hence questions of grammar and of writ-
ing immediately assumed all the signifi-
cance of an apostolate. Purity of dogma
and purity of language went together. Like
the Anglo-Saxons, who had immediately
adopted it, the Roman rite made its way
into all parts of the Empire, together with
the Latin culture. This latter was the in-
strument far excellence of what is known
as the Carolingian Renaissance, although

this had other agents in such men as Paulus
Diaconus, Peter of Pisa, and Theodulf. 9
But it is important to note that this Renais-
sance was purely clerical. It did not affect
the people, who had no understanding of
it. It was at once a revival of the antique
tradition and a break with the Roman tra-
dition, which was interrupted by the seiz-
ure of the Mediterranean regions by Islam.
The lay society of the period, being purely
agricultural and military, no longer made
use of Latin. This was now merely the
language of the priestly caste, which mo-
nopolized all learning, and which was con-
stantly becoming more divorced from the
people whose divinely appointed guide it
considered itself. For centuries there had
been no learning save in the Church. The
consequence was that learning and intel-
lectual culture, while they became more
assertive, were also becoming more excep-
tional. The Carolingian Renaissance coin-
cided with the general illiteracy of the laity.
Under the Merovingians laymen were still
able to read and write; but not so under the
Carolingians. The sovereign who instigated
and supported this movement, Charle-
magne, could not write; nor could his
father, Pippin the Short, We must not at-
tach any real importance to his ineffectual
attempts to bestow this culture upon his
court and his family. To please him, a few
courtiers learnt Latin. Men like Eginhard,
Nithard and Angilbert 10 were passing lumi-
naries. Generally speaking, the immense
majority of the lay aristocracy were un-
affected by a movement which interested

9 Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon) wrote the
very important History of the Lombards; Peter o
Pisa was a grammarian first at Pavia and then at
the Palace School at Aachen; THeodulf was a
Spanish Goth who became Bishop of Orleans and
is recognized as the best poet of the "Carolingian
Renaissance." All were contemporaries of Charle-
magne. [Editor's note]

10 Angilbert, d. 814, was a poet and probably one
of the authors of tie "Royal Annals" of Charle-
magne's period, drawn up in the monastery at
Lorscn. Nithard was a son of Angilbert and a
grandson of Charlemagne, who wrote several his-
tories of trie first naif of the ninth century; these
contain the famous OatL. of Strasbourg (842) in
both French and German. [Editor's note]

40

HENRI PIRENNE

only those of its members who wished to
make a career in the Church.

In the Merovingian epoch the royal ad-
ministration called for a certain culture on
the part of those laymen who wished to
enter it. But now, in so far as it still re-
quired literate recruits as it did 7 for ex-
ample, for the chancellery it obtained
them from the Church. For the rest, since
it no longer had a bureaucracy, it had no
further need of men of education. The
immense majority of the counts were no
doubt illiterate. The type of the Merovin-
gian senator had disappeared. The aristoc-
racy no longer spoke Latin, and apart from
a very few exceptions, which prove the rule,
it could neither read nor write.

A final characteristic of the Carolingian
Renaissance was the reformed handwriting
which was introduced at this period. This
reform consisted in the substitution of the
minuscule for the cursive script: that is to
say, a deliberate calligraphy for a current
hand. As long as the Roman tradition sur-
vived, the Roman cursive was written by
all the peoples of the Mediterranean basin.
It w 7 as, in a certain sense, a business hand,
or, at all events, the writing of a period
when writing was an everyday necessity.
And the diffusion of papyrus was simul-
taneous with this constant need of corre-
sponding and recording. The great crisis of
the 8th century inevitably restricted the
practice of writing. It was hardly required
any longer except for making copies of
books. Now, for this purpose the majuscule
and the uncial were employed. These
scripts were introduced into Ireland when
the country was converted to Christianity.
And in Ireland, not later than the close of
the 7th century, the uncial (semi-uncial)
gave rise to the minuscule, which was al-
ready employed in the antiphonary of
Bangor (680-690). The Anglo-Saxons'took
these manuscripts, together with those
which were brought by the missionaries de-
riving from Rome, as their example and
pattern. It was from the insular minuscule
and the Roman scriptoria, in which the
semi-uncial was much employed, that the

perfected or Caroline minuscule was de-
rived at the beginning of the 9th century.

The first dated example of this minus-
cule is found in the evangelary written by
Godescalc in 781, at the request of Charle-
magne, who was himself unable to write.
Alcuin made the monastery of Tours a cen-
tre of diffusion for this new writing, which
was to determine the whole subsequent
graphological evolution of the Middle Ages.

A number of monasteries, which might
be compared to the printing-offices of the
Renaissance, provided for the increasing
demand for books and the diffusion of these
new characters. In addition to Tours, there
were Corbie, Orleans, Saint Denis, Saint
Wandrille, Fulda, Corvey, Saint Gall,
Reichenau, and Lorsch. In most of them,
and above all in Fulda, there were Anglo-
Saxon monks. It will be noted that nearly
all these monasteries were situated in the
North, between the Seine and the Weser.
It was in this region, of which the original
Carolingian domains formed the centre,
that the new ecclesiastical culture, or, shall
we say, the Carolingian Renaissance, at-
tained its greatest efflorescence.

Thus we observe the same phenomenon
in every domain of life. The culture which
had hitherto flourished in the Mediter-
ranean countries had migrated to the
North. It was in the North that the civili-
zation of the Middle Ages was elaborated.
And it is a striking fact that the majority of
the writers of this period were of Irish,
Anglo-Saxon or Prankish origin: that is,
they came from regions which lay to the
north of the Seine. . . .

Thus we see that Germany, being con-
verted, immediately began to play an essen-
tial part in the civilization to which she
had hitherto been a stranger. The culture
which had been entirely Roman was now
becoming Romano-Germanic, but if truth
be told it was localized in the bosom of the
Church.

Nevertheless, it is evident that a new
orientation was unconsciously effected in
Europe, and that in this development Ger-
manism collaborated. Charlemagne's court,

From Mohammed and Charlemagne

41

and Charlemagne himself, were certainly
much less Latinized than were the Mero-
vingians. Under the new dispensation
many functionaries were recruited from
Germany, and Austrasian vassals were set-
tled in the South. Charlemagne's wives
were all German women. Certain judicial
reforms, such as that of the sheriffs, had
their origin in the regions which gave birth
to the dynasty. Under Pippin the clergy
became Germanized and under Charle-
magne there were many German bishops in
Romanic regions. Angelelmus and Heri-
bald, at Auxerre, were both Bavarians;
Bern old, at Strasbourg, was a Saxon; at
Mans there were three Westphalians in
succession; Hilduin, at Verdun, was a
German; Herulfus and Ariolfus, at Lan-
gres, came from Augsburg; Wulferius, at
Vienne, and Leidrad, at Lyons, were Bava-
rians. And I do not think there is any evi-
dence of a contrary migration. To appreci-
ate the difference we have only to compare
Chilperic, 11 a Latin poet, with Charle-
magne, at whose instance a collection was
made of the ancient Germanic songs!

All this was bound to result in a break
with the Roman and Mediterranean tradi-
tions. And while it made the West more
and more self-sufficing, it produced an aris-
tocracy of mixed descent and inheritance.
Was it not then that many terms found

11 Chilperic was King of the Franks, 561-584.
[Editor's note]

their way into the vocabulary to which an
earlier origin has often been attributed?
There were no longer any Barbarians.
There was one great Christian community,
coterminous with the ecclesia. This ecclesia,
of course, looked toward Rome, but Rome
had broken away from Byzantium and was
bound to look toward the North. The Occi-
dent was now living its own life. It was
preparing to unfold its possibilities, its vir-
tualities, taking no orders from the outer
world, except in the matter of religion.

There was now a community of civiliza-
tion, of which the Carolingian Empire was
the symbol and the instrument. For while
the Germanic element collaborated in this
civilization, it was a Germanic element
which had been Romanized by the Church.
There were, of course, differences within
this community. The Empire would be dis-
membered, but each of its portions would
survive, since the feudality would respect
the monarchy. In short, the culture which
was to be that of the period extending from
the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance
of the 12th century and this was a true
renaissance bore, and would continue to
bear, the Carolingian imprint. There was
an end of political unity, but an interna-
tional unity of culture survived. Just as the
States founded in the West in the 5th cen-
tury by the Barbarian kings retained the
Roman imprint, so France, Germany, and
Italy retained the Carolingian imprint.

GENERAL CONCLUSION

From the foregoing data, it seems, we
may draw two essential conclusions:

1. The Germanic invasions destroyed
neither the Mediterranean unity of the an-
cient world, nor what may be regarded as
the truly essential features of the Roman
culture as it still existed in the 5th century,
at a time when there was no longer an
Emperor in the West.

Despite the resulting turmoil and de-
struction, no new principles made their

appearance; neither in the economic or
social order, nor in the linguistic situation,
nor in the existing institutions. What civili-
zation survived was Mediterranean. It was
in the regions by the sea that culture was
preserved, and it was from them that the
innovations of the age proceeded: monasti-
cism, the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons,
the ars Barbarica, etc.

The Orient was the fertilizing factor:
Constantinople, the centre of the world. In

42

HENRI PIRENNE

600 the physiognomy of the world was not
different in quality from that which it had
revealed in 400.

2. The cause of the break with the tra-
dition of antiquity was the rapid and un-
expected advance of Islam. The result of
this advance was the final separation of
East from West, and the end of the Medi-
terranean unity. Countries like Africa and
Spain, which had always been parts of the
Western community, gravitated henceforth
in the orbit of Baghdad. In these countries
another religion made its appearance, and
an entirely different culture. The Western
Mediterranean, having become a Musul-
man lake, was no longer the thoroughfare
of commerce and of thought which it had
always been.

The West was blockaded and forced to
live upon its own resources. For the first
time in history the axis of life was shifted
northwards from the Mediterranean. The
decadence into which the Merovingian
monarchy lapsed as a result of this change
gave birth to a new dynasty, the Carolin-
gian, w r hose original home was in the Ger-
manic North.

With this new dynasty the Pope allied
himself, breaking with the Emperor, who,
engrossed in his struggle against the Musul-

mans, could no longer protect him. And
so the Church allied itself with the new
order of things. In Rome, and in the Em-
pire which it founded, it had no rival. And
its power was all the greater inasmuch as
the State, being incapable of maintaining
its administration, allowed itself to be ab-
sorbed by the feudality, the inevitable se-
quel of the economic regression. All the
consequences of this change became glar-
ingly apparent after Charlemagne. Europe,
dominated by the Church and the feudal-
ity, assumed a new physiognomy, differing
slightly in different regions. The Middle
Ages to retain the traditional term were
beginning. The transitional phase was pro-
tracted. One may say that it lasted a whole
century from 650 to 750. It was during
this period of anarchy that the tradition of
antiquity disappeared, while the new ele-
ments came to the surface.

This development was completed in 800
by the constitution of the new Empire,
which consecrated the break between the
West and the East, inasmuch as it gave to
the West a new Roman Empire the mani-
fest proof that it had broken with the old
Empire, which continued to exist in
Constantinople.

ORIGINS OF MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION
AND THE PROBLEM OF CONTINUITY

J. LESTOCQU OY

Jean Francois Lestocquoy (1903- ), a French medievalist, has been
associated since 1931 with the institution of Saint-Joseph of Arras and
has been active in various historical societies of the department of Pas-
de-Calais. Lestocquoy is now recognized as the chief authority on the
history of this region, which, in the early Middle Ages, became a posses-
sion of the Count of Flanders and then, as now, had special importance
by reason of its strategic situation near the English Channel.

Tl
E BIRTH of a civilization, the changes
in ideas and outward forms, maybe in
the very appearance of the country, which
such an event involves, must always be of
the deepest interest to historians. Hence
the general preoccupation with that obscure
period, which, for good or ill, has been
termed the Dark Ages. Where are the
origins of medieval civilization to be found"?
The theory that first held the field looked
for its answers to Rome: certain elements
of Roman civilization had always survived,
particularly in the organization of the
towns. Then there was a reaction, and the
Roman theory was rejected, in a manner
perhaps too sweeping. With the single
reservation that in Italy alone some mem-
ories of Roman civilization might have
survived, all was attributed to the Germans,
the true founders of medieval civilization.
Both theories are open to the same criti-
cism, that they view the problem too
exclusively from the juridical point of view.
Life is not so simple as lawyers would make
it, and juridical concepts alone cannot
provide an explanation of medieval civiliza-
tion. Neither Rome nor the barabarians are

enough; the origins of medieval civilization
are to be sought in the development of the
peoples themselves.

The view which is at present the most
widely accepted is that of Henri Pirenne.
According to him, medieval civilization
began to take shape at the end of the tenth
century after the Viking and Hungarian
invasions had ceased. The end of the
ancient world had come much earlier. The
triumph of Islam shattered the unity of
the Mediterranean and severed those rela-
tions with the east and with ancient civili-
zation which had still been maintained
under the Merovingians. There had then
been a sudden breach with the past, and
the Carolingian period was one of full
decline. Charlemagne was thrown back on
the resources of northern Europe, and life
became self-centred as never before. Civili-
zation became completely rural, with the
great domain as its normal expression.
Towns, or at least towns worthy of the
name, no longer existed, and merchants
sank to the level of common pedlars. This
retrogression of economic life was accentu-
ated by the Viking invasions. Only at the

From J. Lestocquoy, "The Tenth Century," The Economic History Review, XVII (No. 1, 1947),
pp. 1-6. By permission of the author and The Economic History Review.

43

44

J. LESTOCQUOY

very end of the tenth century did Europe
begin to revive, and then under influences
coming from the east by way of Venice.
A merchant class came into being and gave
importance to the towns, gradually replac-
ing the pedlars and Jews who for three
centuries had maintained such little com-
merce as had continued to exist. At first
these merchants were wanderers without
any permanent home, adventurers thrown
up by the surplus population of the country-
side. It was only gradually that they settled
down. Towns came into existence in spots
favoured by nature, either at natural har-
bours or at points inland where rivers ceased
to be navigable. In these settlements mer-
chants were all-important and were able to
create for themselves their own law, the
jus mercatorum.

The theory is attractive enough, and the
last part of it at least has been generally
admitted. But the first part has been widely
questioned. Many historians have refused
to admit that the growth of Islam was so
decisive a factor in the development of
Europe. The studies of M. Sabbe on the
commerce in precious stuffs appeared to
show that the Mediterranean trade was
interrupted less completely than Pirenne
had thought. It was even possible to argue
that the Carolingian period saw an advance
in commerce and not a decline. F. L.
Ganshof showed that there was still some
commerce in the ports of Provence between
the eighth and the tenth centuries. 1 R. S.
Lopez, looking at the question from the
point of view of the east, sought to explain
the decline by the weakening of the rela-
tions with Constantinople: a process which
was chronologically independent of the
expansion of Islam.

Would it not therefore be right to admit
that although the career of Mohammed
must have had a considerable influence on
developments in Europe it was less decisive
and less easy to define than Pirenne
believed? Nor was there a sharp contrast

1 Sabbe and Ganshof are Belgian historians. [Edi-
tor's note]

between the Merovingian and Carolingian
periods. In the ninth century there must
have been still professional merchants and
a certain amount of commerce. In the
northern regions of the Prankish empire
economic life may even have continued to
progress when the invasions, Norman first
and Hungarian afterwards, took place.

With the invasions the problem of con-
tinuity comes up again. Was there really a
sharp break between the period preceding
the invasions and that which followed
them"? Must one regard the development
of towns in the eleventh century as a kind
of spontaneous generation: 5 For such is in
fact the theory of Pirenne. For him the
towns were something entirely new; their
inhabitants were adventurers coming from
places unknown, a surplus population of a
countryside which was increasing in num-
bers at a prodigious rate. Thus from a class
of ruthless men there sprang that merchant
class, which was in time to give birth to
the urban patriciate and to impart to the
towns of the Middle Ages their peculiar
character.

n

These questions could only be answered
by a more elaborate study of tenth-century
conditions than is possible in this short
essay. Such a study would have to include
not only Flanders, where documentary evi-
dence, save for the south, is very scanty, but
also Germany and Italy. For there is still
another question that one must ask, and
that is, whether the development of these
regions was independent or interconnected?
Were their towns and merchants unique
specimens, or did they form part of a western
whole"? My own feeling is that these regions
were only at slightly different stages of
development, and that the less fortunate of
the newest regions, such as Flanders, were
constantly tending to catch up with the
social development of those regions which
were more advanced. One has the impres-
sion that the government of towns by the
bourgeoisie was a kind of norm in the
Middle Ages. It was the goal to which

Origins of Medieval Civilization and the Problem of Continuity

45

everything was tending, although the point
of departure in different regions might not
always be the same.

The lines of demarcation between region
and region were never sharp. Above all,
the merchant 'bourgeoisie, without being
vagrant, was extremely well-travelled and
far from ignorant about affairs of other
countries, however distant. Guilland, in his
lectures at the Sorbonne in 1940, called
attention to the remarkable similarities be-
tween the organization of the silk industry
at Constantinople and that of the cloth
industry at Florence and Douai in the tenth
and eleventh centuries, and that of England
in the later centuries. This influence must
have been disseminated by the famous
Livre du Prefet. In the realm of art the
eastern derivation of Romanesque is gener-
ally admitted; why should similar influences
have been absent from the field of ideas
and social organization?

The literature on the origins of our civili-
zation will reveal to what a surprising extent
the fog of silence envelops the tenth cen-
tury. It almost seems as if we must renounce
all hope of ever knowing all that happened
during that period. Apart from a few illu-
minated manuscripts, it has left little behind
in the way of works of art, and this lacuna
is the more significant in view of the
brilliant achievements of the Carolingian
period and the amazing triumphs of the
eleventh century, "le siecle des grandes
experiences," as Focillon 2 has called it. Nor
did this period produce anything of impor-
tance in the way of literature. Its most
valuable writer was Flodoard: what could
we have done without him? Yet for him,
as for most of his contemporaries, annals
and history were interchangeable terms. He
lines up his facts in the most precise fashion,
so to speak, end to end, without bothering
about their interrelations. Compared to
Einhard in the ninth century and Raoul
Glaber in the eleventh century, Flodoard

2 Henri Focillon, French historian, was the author
of an important book, L'an mil (The Year One
Thousand'), Paris, 1952. [Editor's note]

is not a historian. 3 Einhard and Raoul
Glaber do not merely relate the succession
of events; they give form to their material
and try to interpret it, they give us their
own views, in short. Flodoard, on the other
hand, describes a mere succession of inde-
pendent events. His precision is something
we must be grateful for; but his want of
ideas betrays the decadence of his age.

At the same time the production of annals
was entirely suited to the period. Men were
compelled to live in the present, as Lot has
observed. 4 The students of the history of
the early Middle Ages, and of the tenth
century in particular, will be struck by the
total absence of political ideas, of clear-cut
intellectual schemes, of all notion of con-
tinuity. We cannot attribute political or
economic aims to the rulers of the period
without committing a grave anachronism.
In the sparsely populated regions of the
north, the only object of policy seems to
have been that of territorial conquest, which
is surely not a sign of mature political
thought. To a historian in search of political
ideas or economic policies, nothing can be
more disconcerting than the general history
of the period: a mere record of petty per-
sonal rivalries. France was a prey to con-
stant civil war, and although Count Arnulf
succeeded in building up a strong power in
Flanders in the middle of the tenth century,
his death was followed by a relapse into
anarchy. Germany under the Saxon em-
perors alone gives the impression of any
real political organization.

Why this should have been so is easy to
understand, for the state of insecurity pre-
vailed over the greater part of Europe. One
is tempted to forget how long the scourge

3 Einhard (ca. 770-840) was associated with the
palace school at Aachen and was the author of a
celebrated Life of Charlemagne. Raoul Glaher
(ca. 1000-1050) was a Benedictine chronicler at
St. Germain d Auxerre and wrote a kind o history
of the world, from 900 to 1045. Flodoard (10th
century) wrote a history of the church of Kheims,
valuable mainly for the documents included. [Edi-
tor's note]

4 Ferdinand Lot, Les demiers carolingiens (Paris,
1891), p. 168.

46

J. LESTOCQUOY

of the invasions continued, and to assume
that those of the Northmen ceased in 883
and were followed by a period of peace.
But, if we merely turn over the pages of
Flodoard, we can easily see what an illusion
this is. The Normans occupied Brittany in
921. The Hungarians devastated Italy in
922 and sacked Pavia, one of the most
important towns in Europe, in 924. During
the same years the Normans continued their
devastations in Aquitaine and Auvergne.
In 925 they invaded the valley of the
Somme and advanced as far as Noyon. In
the single year 926, King Robert of France
defeated the Normans at Fauquembergue
in Artois, there was a Norman invasion of
the valley of Loire, and there were two
Hungarian invasions. The very rumour of
the approach of the Hungarians was suffi-
cient to cause a general flight of the country-
folk with their relics to the shelter of the
towns. The terrible raids of the Hungarians
were continued in 933 and 935, and on a
vaster scale in 955. In Italy after a devasta-
tion by Berengar in 962 somewhat more
peaceful conditions returned, but even then
the peace was only a comparative one.
Bands of Saracens watched over the Alpine
passes, where until 973 or 983 they blocked
the route and killed travellers or held them
to ransom, thus impeding communications
between Italy and the rest of Europe. How
could trade survive under such conditions?
More especially, how could it proceed in
lands where Norman raids appear to have
reduced the towns to petty insignificance?
Besides the circumstances, the men them-
selves must be taken into account. We
know that the economy of the period was
mainly rural, but unfortunately we know
almost nothing about the rural life of the
period. This is the more unfortunate since
the intense local urban life, which charac-
terized the later Middle Ages and lasted
until the appearance of powerful and cen-
tralized states with capital cities had reduced
other towns to positions of secondary impor-
tance, was not yet born. In the tenth cen-
tury the countryside and the manor took
precedence over the towns a circumstance

which differentiates most sharply the west
from the east.

There is, however, one characteristic of
the period that must be emphasized, for it
is not always immediately apparent in the
texts, and only becomes apparent if viewed
in the perspective of centuries. This is the
remarkable weakness, the minute scale, of
all things. Let us take for example the
towns and military operations as measured
by the scale of the fortified places. We find
that Montreuil-sur-Mer (which recent
studies have shown to have had an unex-
pected importance in the Middle Ages)
was constantly an object of dispute between
Flanders and Normandy. But the frag-
ments of the town wall, now surviving in
private gardens, can still be seen, and its
towers are so small that they make one
think of children's games rather than of
military 7 operations. Similarly, Senlis suc-
cessfully resisted capture by Louis d'Ou-
tremer and Otto I in 946, and the texts refer
to the strength of its walls. . . . But these
were Roman walls which had already
existed for six centuries. Amiens had also
retained its Roman walls. When in 950,
Arnulf of Flanders was at war with Herbert
of Vermandois, the latter took possession of
a tower already occupied by the Bishop
of Amiens, so that each of the two belliger-
ents was installed in a tower, each serving
as a diminutive fortress. There is something
almost comic about a war on this scale.
Laon, which was captured in 949 only by a
stratagem, was scarcely more redoubtable.
All this indicates that the armies were
feeble, the towns petty; certainly a place of
several thousand inhabitants would take
rank as a great city. And even so, great
towns of this kind were mostly to be found
north of the Seine, in that part of France
which still retained some vitality. What do
we know of the future great cities of the
Middle Ages; of Florence, Siena, Pisa and
Lucca? These were all little townships, too
small to be mentioned. The same is true of
Ghent and St-Omer; the silence of our
authorities is not pure accident. Almost the
only places mentioned in those regions

Origins of Medieval Civilization and the Problem of Continuity

47

which were to be the scene of intense
economic activity in the eleventh century
are Rheims, Arras and Verdun in France,
and Pavia, Milan and Venice in Italy.

Indeed it is possible to develop this theme
further and to argue that urban life in the
west had been reduced to the minimum.
This has in fact often been done, and
Pirenne makes it one of the main bases of
his argument. Whatever view we take, it is

certain that in this respect the west was
sharply differentiated from the east. The
west has nothing comparable to a city like
Constantinople. We need not perhaps give
credence to the tale that Constantinople had
a population of a million and Thessalonica
of five hundred thousand, but there can be
no doubt that the cities were on a scale no
longer known in Europe. . . .

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE
BARBARIAN INVASIONS

H. ST. L. B. MOSS

Henry St. Lawrence Beaufort Moss has been associated in historical
writing with Professor Norman H. Baynes. In Britain they have greatly
opened up the study of Byzantine history. Among Mr. Moss 1 publications
is an excellent text, The Birth of the Middle Ages, 395-814. The selection
which follows reprints in its entirety an article by Mr. Moss in a series on
"Revisions In Economic History," In the British journal, The Economic
History Review. Mr. Moss wrote this article in 1937 as a summary of
historical investigation at that time. For his extensive documentation the
student is referred to the original article.

DURING the past generation a sub-
stantial literature has accumulated
round one of the central problems of
European history 7 the transition from the
ancient world to medieval civilisation. By
the end of the nineteenth century what
may be called the "catastrophic" view had
been definitely abandoned. Since then the
complexity of the change has become
steadily more apparent. How distant any
general agreement still is, even on its main
features, was shown by the debates of the
Historical Congress at Oslo in 1928; and
detailed re-examination of its many aspects
proceeds unceasingly in a score of periodi-
cals and a steady flow of monographs. A
cursory and superficial survey of some of
the principal points of controversy is all
that will be attempted in the following
pages.

The economic approach to history is a
comparatively recent development. Ancient
and medieval writers were seldom directly
concerned wdth the subject, and not till the
last century did it emerge as a definite

subdivision of historiography. A revaluation
of many historical judgments followed,
based on a fresh sifting of the sources.
But an important obstacle to the new
studies, so far as the "dark ages" are con-
cerned, soon made its appearance. Deficient
in general as the sources for these centuries
are, nowhere is their poverty more thread-
bare than in the economic data which they
provide. Scanty references, often of purely
local application, in the writings of annal-
ists, orators, monkish chroniclers or theo-
logians must be collected, interpreted, and
assessed in the light of a background which
is often only too obscure, before any general
picture can be formed. Population statistics,
estimates of money- values, even, in many
cases, identification of place-names these,
and much else, are highly problematical.
Epigraphic and archaeological evidence is
notably insufficient, as compared with that
of the preceding centuries. It is no disserv-
ice to the results achieved by recent scholar-
ship to point out that the material at its
disposal is lamentably small in proportion

From H. St. L. B. Moss, "The Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions," The Economic
History Review, VII CMay, 1937), 209-216. Published for The Economic History Society by A. & C.
Black, Ltd., London. Reprinted by permission of the Economic History Society and Mr. Moss.

48

Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions

49

to the difficulty and extent of the problem.
This being so, it is arguable that compre-
hensive theories should be regarded at
present rather as working hypotheses to be
tested and possibly modified by gradually
accumulating data, than as definite solu-
tions to which all such data must necessarily
conform.

"Barbarian Invasions" is a wide term,
covering more than a millennium. For our
present purpose we may define it as the
Germanic settlements which, during the
fifth and sixth centuries A. D., led to
the breakdown of Roman government in
the western provinces. This will exclude
such later developments as the Slavs, the
Northmen, the Magyars, and (except inci-
dentally) the Arabs. The eastern Mediter-
ranean, where Roman administration con-
tinued to operate, is also excluded, though
it was undoubtedly, during the whole of
this period, the commercial focus of Europe.
Spain and Africa, owing to the Islamic
conquests, stand apart; and evidence con-
cerning them is in any case insufficient for
any brief generalisations. Britain is also, at
this time, removed from the main course of
western European history, and its special
problems will not be entered upon here.

The economic significance of the inva-
sions has been presented in a fresh light by
the results of recent investigation, which
has led to a general softening down of
climaxes and contrasts. Kulturcasur, an
abrupt break of cultural continuitv, is no
longer in question: for Rostovtzeff "what
happened was a slow and gradual change,
a shifting of values in the consciousness of
men," though he admits the virtual dis-
appearance of the Graeco-Roman city
organisation, and a reduction of ancient
civilisation to some essential elements.
Chronologically, he adds, this "coincides
with the political disintegration of the
Roman Empire, and with a great chan.ee
in its social and economic life." This simpli-
fication of the complex structure of the
ancient world can be traced from the un-
settled conditions which succeeded the
Antonine Age, at the close of the second

century; it is from this period, in F. Lot's
view, 1 that the Middle Ages should properly
be dated. The pace of regression was there-
fore slow; and the continued contact and
gradual fusion of the Roman and Germanic
worlds, which was made possible by the
survival, until the opening of the fifth
century, of the Roman Empire in the West
thanks largely to the measures of Dio-
cletian and Constantine enabkd many
Roman institutions to pass into the structure
of the barbarian kingdoms.

The details of this fusion have received
much attention. Early German settlements
within the frontiers have been noticed; the
careers of Germans in Roman service have
been traced. Economic and cultural rela-
tions between the Empire and the barbar-
ians have been studied. . . . The agrarian
systems of the later Roman Empire and of
the Teutonic peoples have given rise to
much controversial literature. The contrast
formerly drawn between the free association
of the "Mark" of primitive German agri-
culture and the despotic control of the great
Roman estates had been abandoned, or seri-
ously modified, by the end of last century,
and emphasis is now laid by certain writers
on the inequalities of German social classes
and the essential continuity in landholding
arrangements, from the ancient to the medi-
eval worlds. Thus H. See, developing the
teaching of Fustel de Coulanges, claims that
in France "le personnel des proprietaires
pourra changer au cours des temps, mais
la villa et le manse subsisteront pendant
des siecles, souvent avec leur dimensions
primitives." 2 Italian authorities have simi-
larly dwelt on the Roman survivals in their

1 This view was developed by Ferdinand Lot in
his The End of the Ancient 'World and the Begin-
nings of the Middle Ages, London, 1931. [Editor's
note]

2 "the personnel of the owners will change in time,
but the villa and the 'manse' will persist for centu-
ries, often with their original boundaries." Henri
See (1864-1930) was a leading French economic
historian. Fustel de Coulanges Q830-1889) de-
veloped a theory of Roman origins of feudalism,
which though not generally accepted had a signifi-
cant influence on historical interpretations in his
day. [Editor's note]

50

H. ST. L. B. MOSS

country, not only in the organisation of the
great estates, but in the city-centered life of
the Lombards, and, as has been suggested,
in the continued existence, even so late as
the tenth century, of "artisan corporations"
akin to those which characterised the indus-
trial system of the later Roman state.

Examination of the conditions prevailing
in the Romano-German kingdoms has
shown a compromise rather than a conquest,
varying in the degree with the different
peoples, but such is the trend of much
recent theory with a considerably larger
admixture of Roman elements that was
formerly believed. Legal codes, marriage
customs and social divisions exhibit many
examples of interaction and even, perhaps,
convergence of similar institutions, while
the role played by the Church in the preser-
vation of Roman legal and juridical methods
has lately been brought into full promi-
nence. Nor has the view of an unbroken
economic regression, a steady drift towards
"natural economy" from the third century
onwards, been left unchallenged. It had
already been noticed that the currency
reforms of Constantine I were followed by
a return to the monetary conditions of the
earlier Empire, and G. Mickwitz has shown
that these continued to exist throughout the
fourth century; even the State itself, in
whose interests it was to maintain the pay-
ments in kind stabilised by Diocletian, had
finally to capitulate before the demands of
the army and civil service. The Ostrogothic
kingdom in Italy, as Hartmann 3 had proved,
was still organised on a money basis, the
details of which have recently been eluci-
dated by H. Geiss, and Italian writers have
even maintained that no real breach is
observable between the financial arrange-
ments of the later Roman Empire and those
of the Lombard government. Stress, in fact,
is in general laid on the prevalence of a
''money economy" throughout these cen-

M. Hartmann (1865-1924), a German
historian who applied the evolutionary approach.
to the problem of the transition from Rome to
Europe. Other historians mentioned in this para-
graph are more recent writers. [Editor's notej

turies, and the denial of any decisive eco-
nomic change caused by the barbarians has
involved the theory that commerce and
finance suffered no serious setback.

Two celebrated theories must be men-
tioned in this connection, those of H.
Pirenne and A. Dopsch, though space for-
bids more than a brief description. In
Pirenne's view, 4 the economic organisation
of the provinces where the Germans settled
underwent no appreciable change. The
Mediterranean unity of the ancient world
continued unbroken until the Islamic con-
quests. Merovingian Gaul, in this respect,
presented no contrasts xvith Roman Gaul.
During the most flourishing period of
Roman rule, Belgium had been in close
contact xvith the Mediterranean world, im-
porting, for instance, for her villas marble
from Illyria and Africa and objets d'art of
Italian or Oriental origin, and exporting
hams and geese to the Imperial capital, and
pottery and woollen cloaks over the Alpine
roads to Italy. "In spite of the scanty evi-
dence, xve know for certain that up to about
the year 700, Mediterranean commerce was
still spreading all kinds of Oriental spices
over the country. Papyrus, imported from
Egypt, was so plentiful that it could be
regularly bought at the market of Cambrai,
and no doubt in many other places." In
little more than a generation, all this was
changed. At the beginning of the Carolin-
gian period, the adx r ance of Islam closed up
the Mediterranean along the coast of Gaul,
and severed Gallic relations xvith Syria and
Egypt? drying up the stream of commerce
from Marseilles. Under these conditions,
an economy of regression, of decadence,
rapidly set in. The result was the extinction
of commerce, industry, and urban life, the
disappearance of the merchant class, and
the substitution for the "exchange economy"
which had previously functioned of an
economy occupied solely with the cultiva-
tion of the soil and the consumption of its
products by the oxvners. Even Italy and

4 The remainder of this paragraph is a summary
of Pirenne's views with quotations from his writ-
ings, [Editor's note]

Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions

51

the Netherlands, though at first presenting
"a striking contrast with the essentially agri-
cultural civilisation to which the closing of
the Mediterranean had reduced western
Europe/' were finally forced to adopt this
retrogressive economy, in \vhich payments
were largely rendered in kind. A species of
Kulturcasur accompanied these develop-
ments in France. The Roman lay schools
had existed in Merovingian times, and
merchants must have been literate to handle
the complicated transactions of Mediter-
ranean trade. Commercial culture, however,
disappeared in the course of the eighth
century; credit and contracts were no longer
in use; writing was no longer needed, tallies
or chalk marks sufficing for the deals of the
local market, and the "mercator" of the
ninth-century sources is no longer an edu-
cated man of affairs, but a peasant carrying
eggs and vegetables once a week to the
neighbouring township.

To summarise briefly the work of Dopsch
is an even more hazardous task in view of
the wide range of his theories and the con-
siderable development which they have
undergone. Covering the whole field of
economic life from Caesar to Charlemagne,
Dopsch has surveyed in detail the evidence
for the relations between the German and
Roman worlds, the importance of which
had been first brought into full prominence
in O. Seeck's brilliant work. 5 Emphasis is
laid on the recent findings of archaeology,
especially in the districts of the Rhine and
upper Danube, as showing continuity on
the occupied sites, and on the smallness of
the difference in cultural level which, it is
claimed, separated the German from the
Roman population at the time of the inva-
sions. It is no longer possible to regard the
German as a mere peasant, or a follower of
nomad raiding chiefs; he was also a settled
farmer, a seafarer, a skilled merchant, even
a city-dweller. The general conclusion,
which resembles that of Seeck, is reached
that the German peoples pervaded the

5 Otto Seeck (1850-1921) wrote an important
six-volume work on the period from Diocletian to
476. [Editor's note]

Roman Empire from within, by a kind of
peaceful penetration; with the coming of
the German kingdoms, the old-established
firm, as it were, changed its name to that
of the long predominant partner. The con-
tinuity is worked out in great detail; land-
holding, social classes, political organization
are traced in the various kingdoms up to
the time of the Carolingian ascendancy in
western Europe. Industry and commerce
are likewise held to show no hiatus, save
for the temporary disturbances caused by
the invasions. Trade still circulated along
the Roman roads, carrying not only the
luxuries, but the necessities of life. The
nobility may have retreated to their country
estates, but they remained in contact with
the towns (which continued for the most
part to exist) and produced for the local
market. The whole theory of a regression
to "natural economy" and the doctrine of a
"closed domestic economy" must therefore
be abandoned. The Germans had for cen-
turies been accustomed to the handling of
money, and even in the invasion period had
carried on extensive trading activities. The
Germanic kingdoms were therefore con-
ducted on a currency basis, and financial
policy formed part of their political pro-
grammes. The Carolingian period, far from
showing a decline, as in Pirenne's view,
witnessed a considerable extension of trade
and industry, and even the dissolution of
Charlemagne's Empire was not followed by
any regression to autarchic conditions. "The
Carolingian development is a link in the
unbroken chain of living continuity which
leads, without any cultural break, from the
late antiquity to the German middle ages."
What, it may be asked, has become of
"the great change in social and economic
life" to which RostovtzefT refers"? From the
studies which we have been analyzing, it
would seem that nothing of the sort took
place, and that the early Middle Ages
preserved intact the fabric of later Roman
economic organization. Some reservations
may be suggested as regards the theories
outlined above. In the first place, none of
the attempts to provide a general economic

52

H. ST. L. B. MOSS

"pattern" for these centuries has succeeded
in establishing itself beyond the reach of
controversy. M. Weber and others had
pointed to the recession to conditions of
"natural Economy" which took place in the
third century A. D., and to the settlement
of nobles on country estates which supplied
all their own needs. . . . Trade was only
thinly spread, and the requirements of the
State were not met, on the whole by mone-
tary means. K. Bucher, building on this
position, then formed his theory of stages,
in which three main phases of development
were traced in the economic history of
Europe. The first, most primitive, stage,
that of a "closed house-economy," covered
the whole ancient world, and persisted until
the tenth century A. D. His view was based,
as regards ancient history, on an incomplete
analysis, which examined principally the
early Greek and late Roman periods. Sub-
sequent work by Beloch and Ed. Meyer,
among others, invalidated his conclusions.
It was shown that the economic life of the
ancient world, especially in the Hellenistic
and Roman periods, attained a complexity
of organisation which was not reached again
till many centuries had passed. These views
have been reinforced by epigraphic and
archaeological research, and especially by
the papyrus evidence from Egypt. Thus the
theory of Bucher, as regards the Graeco-
Roman world, has long ceased to find any
general acceptance. Dopsch, however, com-
plains that its influence continues to domi-
nate the outlook of historical students upon
the period under discussion. 6

Yet the character of the later Roman
organisation precludes any unhesitating
acceptance in their entirety of Dopsch's
views. Perhaps the greatest administrative
change in European history was the replace-
ment of the folis system by the Roman

6 Historians mentioned in this paragraph: Max
Weber (1864-1920) ranks as one of the most pro-
found of German historians of his day; today we
would call him a social scientist Karl Bucher was
a German economic historian. Beloch (1854-
1929) and E. Meyer (1855-1930) were German
authorities on the ancient world. [Editor's note]

world-empire. The organism of the self-
governing city-state gave way to the new
bureaucracy, supporting and supported by
the central Imperial power, whose origin
lay not in the old polis world, but rather in
the great "private economies" of the Hellen-
istic rulers. In the final stage, the constitu-
tion of Diocletian and Constantine, the
bureaucracy became the executive of the
absolutist central government in all branches
of administration. Society adapted itself to
the new conditions, and the great land-
owners gained a large measure of control

o o

over their dependents. Trade and industry,
as Rostovtzeff has shown, were progressively
subordinated to the public services. . . .
But whereas in the east the centralizing
bureaucracy prevailed, in the west, through
the weakness, and final breakdown, of the
imperial government, it was the decentralis-
ing landowners who gained the upper hand.
Indeed, in western Europe the decline may
have set in long before; but the immense
contrast, which recent studies have not
weakened, between the east Roman world
with its highly developed administration
and civil service, its complex, and largely
State-controlled, organisation of trade and
commerce and the chaotic conditions,
localised governments and decline of cul-
tural standards in western Europe indicates
more surely than anything else the changes
wrought by the barbarian invasions.

The onus of proof, therefore, lies on
those who would seek to show that industry
and trade suffered no vital and permanent
setback when the fall of the Empire in the
West had removed the unified framework
of civil and military defense, and left in
its place a number of different, and often
antagonistic, governmental units. Such
proof, if it is to cover the economic life of
western Europe, must be not only extensive,
but representative, and typical of whole
countries. The provinces of the later Roman
Empire already exhibited marked variations,
and the circumstances of the barbarian
settlements greatly increased them. In Italy,
the contrasting conditions of the Byzantine
exarchate and the Lombard districts are

Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions

53

well known, and for the latter the unsatis-
factory nature of the sources has often heen
emphasised. ... In France, regional differ-
ences are equally remarkable, and the un-
equal and scanty nature of the evidence
forms an inadequate basis for the far-reach-
ing conclusions of Pirenne' s theory. The
Germanic districts, for example, of the
Merovingian realm rarely find mention in
the sources, and the survival of Rhineland
trade in the fifth and sixth centuries is
incapable of proof. A principal part in that
theory is played by the statements of
Gregory of Tours, but the striking criticism
of N. H. Baynes has gone far to invalidate
the interpretation placed upon them, and
his suggestion that the unity of the Medi-
terranean world was broken, not by the
advance o Islam, but by the pirate fleet of
Vandal Carthage, seems more in accordance
with probability. Moreover, in face of the
general picture of the barbarous conditions
in France delineated by Gregory of Tours,
stronger proofs than Pirenne has been able
to adduce are required before we can be
confident of the survival of a highly devel-
oped machinery of trade. It is not sufficient
to point to examples of exotic imports as
evidence of this. Easily portable luxuries

amber, jewels, beads were carried enor-
mous distances in prehistoric times, but
such commerce belongs rather to the
romance than to the everyday realities of
economic life. Finally, the evidence for the
continuance of the Roman educational
system under the Merovings, to which
Pirenne has devoted several studies, is not,
in the opinion of the present writer,
convincing.

Dopsch's theory has developed from his
criticism of opposing views, and it may be
suggested that this circumstance has led to
a somewhat one-sided presentation of the
facts, and not infrequently to over-state-
ment. The quality of his voluminous evi-
dence varies considerably, and much of it
has already been called in question. In
drawing attention to the immense variety
of conditions which prevailed in western
Europe during these centuries, and in
modifying the generalisations which have
been put forward concerning its social and
economic life, Dopsch has performed an
invaluable service. Whether these modifica-
tions are sufficiently far-reaching to establish
a new and authoritative "pattern" of
economic development is a more doubtful
matter.

M. PIRENNE AND THE UNITY OF THE
MEDITERRANEAN WORLD

NORMAN H . BAYNES

Norman H. Baynes (1 877- ), Britain's outstanding Byzantine scholar
in our day, came to the field of history as he was approaching middle
age. A barrister-at-law, during World War I he was confronted with a
choice of continuing in the teaching and practice of law, or turning to
the teaching and writing of history. For English historical scholarship his
decision was a happy one; for close to thirty years he was a member of
the teaching staff of University College, London, where he was held
in great affection and high esteem. His scholarly work, extensive and
arresting, which brought him many honors, including honorary degrees
from Oxford and Cambridge, was largely devoted to Byzantine studies,
or, as he preferred to call it, East Roman History. The selection which
follows is from a book review, published in 1929, of the French edition
of Pirenne's Medieval Cities.

EIR M. PIRENNE the unity of the Medi-
erranean world was maintained un-
broken into the eighth century of our era:
that unity was only shattered as a result
of the Arab conquest of Africa. Upon the
continent that theory has been vigorously
canvassed and directly challenged; it gave
rise, I understand, to the debate which most
successfully enlivened the proceedings of
the International Congress of Historical
Studies at Oslo. To it British scholarship
has paid little attention a disquieting sign
of that general lack of interest in the early
European Middle Age which is now preva-
lent in this country. Yet the problem raised
by M. Pirenne is of the greatest significance
alike for the history of the later Roman
Empire and for the understanding of the
whole period of transition which separates
the reign of Theodosius the Great from the
age of Charlemagne. The central issue at
stake is the position of Merovingian Gaul,

and in particular the question of the part
played by the Syrian merchants of the West
in the economic life of the Merovingian
kingdom. Here Gregory of Tours 1 is, of
course, our principal authority. The His-
tory of the Franks is an extensive work and
it will probably be admitted that it has its
longueurs: the most blood-thirsty reader can
become sated by the story of incessant assas-
sinations. Thus it may be suspected that the
History is more often consulted than it is
read through from beginning to end. Yet it
is only by such a reading that one can gain
an impression of the range of Gregory's in-
terests and contacts. After such a reading
I should like to take this opportunity to
record my own personal impressions. M.
Pirenne writes "La Mediterranee ne perd

1 Gregory of Tours, 539-594. His History of the
Franks is regarded as one of the most important
historical works of the early Middle Ages. [Edi-
tor's note]

From "M. Pirenne and the Unity of the Mediterranean World," in Norman H. Baynes, Byzantine
Studies and Other Essays (University of London, The Athlone Press, London, 1955), pp. 310-316.
Reprinted from Journal of Roman Studies, XIX (1929), by permission of the Society for the Promotion
of Roman Studies.

54

M. Pirenne and the Unity of the Mediterranean World

55

pas son importance apres la periode des
invasions. Elle reste pour les Germains ce
qu'elle etait avant leur arrivee: le centre
meme de 1'Europe, le mare nostrum." ["The
Mediterranean did not lose its importance
after the period of the invasions. It re-
mained for the Germans what it had been
before their arrival: the very center of
Europe, the mare nostrum."} In what sense
and to what extent is this true"? How far
can we prove direct contact between, let us
say, Antioch or Alexandria and the ports of
Merovingian Gaul?

In the first place two remarks must be
made: (i) Students of economics have been
tempted to give to terms used in our medi-
eval sources a modern significance which
is foreign to their context. If a "merchant"
is mentioned, they tend to presume that he
is engaged in far-reaching, even transma-
rine, transactions. . . . [But] the merchant
may be solely concerned with local trade.
GO From the mention of "Syrians" in the
Western sources during the early Middle
Ages there is not infrequently drawn the
inference that these eastern immigrants re-
mained in close commercial relations with
their country of origin, or that the popula-
tion of these colonies was being constantly
reinforced by new arrivals from the East . . .
this presupposition underlies all M. Bre-
hier's work upon the subject. 2 That there
was such commercial intercourse under the
early Empire cannot be doubted: this it was
which brought the Orientals to Western
Europe. . . . Such intercourse continued
through the fourth and into the early fifth
century, but its persistence into the Middle
Age of Merovingian Gaul cannot simply be
assumed; the prior question must be asked:
is there any justification for such an
assumption?

Perhaps the best method of approach is
to study Gregory's knowledge of foreign
countries: 3 what is the range of his infor-

2 Louis Brehier is a French authority on Byzantine
history. His best known work is Le Monde Byzan-
tin, 3 vols. (Paris, 1947-1950). [Editors note]

3 The references to The History of the Franks,
supplied by Baynes, are omitted. [Editor's note]

mation? Of affairs in Visigothic Spain he
was fully informed: embassies were fre-
quent, and he himself questioned Chil-
peric's envoys to Leuvigild on the condition
of the Spanish Catholics. Agilan, Leuvi-
gild's envoy, passed through Tours and dis-
puted with Gregory, and the bishop was
present at the banquet given by Oppila.
Of N. Italy Gregory naturally knew some-
thing owing to the Prankish invasions of
the country, but of S. Italy he seems to have
known little: he can make the remarkable
statement that Buccelin 4 captured Sicily
and exacted tribute from it. Of Rome and of
the Popes of the time we hear nothing, save
of the appeal to John III in the case of the
bishops Salonius and Sagittarius. [In the
next book] however, we are given a long
account of affairs in Rome, showing Greg-
ory's readiness to be interested in the sub-
ject when information could be obtained.
The reason for this sudden extension of the
range of Gregory's vision lies in the fact
that a deacon of Tours, who had been sent
on a mission to Rome to acquire relics of
the saints, had just returned from Italy. If
the reader will consider the character of the
information there recorded, and Gregory's
general silence on Roman matters he will,
I think, infer that Gaul was at this time
not in regular contact with Italy. I myself
cannot believe that ships and traders were
customarily passing between Italy and
Merovingian Gaul. 5

o

If we pass to the history of the Roman
Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean the
result is curiously similar. Of Justinian we

4 Buccelin was a German chieftain; he and his
men were crushed by Narses (one of Justinian's
generals), near Capua in 554. [Editor's note]

5 Individuals mentioned in this and subsequent
paragraphs: Leuvigild was king of the Visigoths,
568-586. Chilperic and Sigebert were sons of the
Merovingian king of the Franks, Chlotar I; they
and their two brothers waged civil war over the
division of the kingdom following their father's
death in 561. Tiberius II (578-582) and Maurice
(582602) were Eastern Roman Emperors. Chil-
debert II, son of Sigebert and of die famous
Brunhild (Visigoth princess) was king of the
Franks, 575596. Gundovald, illegitimate son of
Chlotar I, revolted against Childebert IE and was
crushed by Brunhild, [Editor's note]

56

NORMAN H. BAYNES

hear nothing save the appointment of
Narses in place of Belisarius in Italy and
the campaign in Spain. But of Justin's
reign we learn more: of his character, of
the capture by the Persians of Syrian Anti-
och Anrioch is placed in Egypt! of the
Persian War and of the association by
Justin of Tiberius as colleague. This sud-
den expansion of the narrative is due to the
fact that envoys of Sigebert returned at
this time to Gaul from an embassy to the
imperial court at Constantinople. From the
reign of Tiberius we are given legends of
the emperor's liberality, an account of the
plot to dethrone him in favour of Justinian,
Justin's nephew, and of his Persian War;
but of the stubborn defence of Sirmium
against the Avars Gregory knows nothing.
The source of his information and the rea-
son for his silence may be conjectured from
the fact that Chilperic's embassy to Tibe-
rius returned to Gaul, it would appear, in
the year 580. The operations against the
Avars belong to the years 580-582. We take
up the eastern story once more with the
death of Tiberius and the accession of
Maurice. Here again the information
doubtless came through the imperial en-
voys who brought a subsidy of 50,000
pieces of gold to induce Childebert to at-
tack the Lombards in Italy. Gregory's inter-
est in the affairs of the East when he could
obtain first-hand knowledge of happenings
there is shown from his account of the cap-
ture of Antioch by the Persians derived
from the refugee bishop Simon, the Ar-
menian. The conclusion which would seem
to result from this analysis is that Gregory
had no regular source of information for
eastern affairs such as would have been fur-
nished by traders had they been in con-
tinued relation with the ports of the eastern
empire.

Further, it is remarkable that Childe-
bert's envoy to Constantinople, Grippo, did
not sail directly to the East, but went to
Carthage and there awaited the praefect's
pleasure before he was allowed to proceed
to the imperial court. M. Brehier points

out that Gundovald left Constantinople
and ultimately arrived at Marseilles. True,
but Gregory gives no hint of his route; did
he ? too, travel by way of Carthage?

How far does Gregory's own narrative
support this negative inference? There is
a Syrian merchant at Bordeaux who pos-
sessed a relic of St. Sergius, but at a time
when pilgrimages and relic hunting were
familiar who shall say how this finger of
the saint reached Bordeaux? There were
Svrians and Jews in Paris, and one of them,
a ^merchant, by name Eusebius, secured by
bribes the bishopric; a Syrian of Tours
helped Gregory to translate into Latin the
legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus,
but there is nothing to connect them with
their Syrian homeland. In Merovingian
Gaul the Bretons had ships; we hear of a
ship owned by a Jew coasting from Nice
to Marseilles; the Visigoths of Spain pos-
sessed ships, a ship sailing from Spain "with
the usual merchandise" arrives at Mar-
seilles, while ships sailing from Gaul to
Galicia are plundered by Leuvigild. No-
where, so far as I can see, in the work of
Gregory of Tours is there any suggestion
of a direct contact of Merovingian Gaul
with the eastern Mediterranean. If Justin-
ian was constrained to resort to measures of
fiscal oppression to compel shipowners to
trade with the new imperial conquests in
Italy and Africa, it is hardly likely that East
Roman merchants would readily sail to the
ports of Gaul. That products from the East
reached Merovingian Gaul is clear, but the
problem is whence did they come directly?
Was it from imperial territory in Spain or
from Carthage.

My own belief is that the unity of the
Mediterranean world was broken by the
pirate fleet of Vandal Carthage and that
the shattered unity was never restored. A
Merovingian might have pepper to his
meat, the wine of Gaza might be a bait to
lure a man to his assassination but Gaul
of the Merovingians, so far as vital contacts
with the empire were concerned, was from
the first marooned. Gregory with all his

M. Pirenne and the Unity of the Mediterranean World

57

advantages only gained occasional frag-
ments of information upon the doings of
Romania. . . .

If, then, the view which I have endeav-
oured to set forth has any foundation, it is
misleading to state that for the Franks of
the sixth century the Mediterranean still
remained "mare nostrum"; we can only ac-
cept with qualifications the statement that
"the great Mediterranean commerce which
flourished in Gaul during the Late Empire

subsisted into the 6th and even into the 7th
century"; it is only true at a remove that
"of Byzantium, of Asia Minor and of Egypt
Jewish merchants, but more especially
Syrian merchants continued to supply it
(Gaul) with luxury goods, with precious
fabrics, with fine wines." 6

6 The quotations are from F. Vercauteren (an-
other Belgian historian) and from Pirenne.
Baynes quotes them in French. [Editor's note]

MOHAMMED AND CHARLEMAGNE:
A Revision

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

Robert S. Lopez, born and educated in Italy, came to the United
States shortly before World War II; during that conflict he served with
the Italian Section of the Office of War Information. He has since
become recognized as one of the most active and competent of the
younger medievalists in this country. He has taught at Brooklyn College
and at Columbia and is presently at Yale. One of his many research
interests has been in the field of medieval trade in the Mediterranean
and he has accordingly been much involved in the Pirenne controversy.
One of his early contributions, an important one, appeared in Speculum
in 1943 and this article is here reproduced in its entirety, save for the
omission of a few foreign terms. Professor Lopez now considers this
paper only "a pioneer effort in a direction which was explored more
thoroughly since its publication." It Is nonetheless valuable in illustrating
the character of the controversy fifteen years ago. It is also a clear
expression of many of the fundamental issues in the problem, and if
certain of the answers he then gave have been since superseded it is in
part from further research by Professor Lopez himself. Some of this he
sets forth in the second extract which is taken from a paper which he
read at the Tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences conven-
ing in Rome in 1955.

IT is not my purpose to challenge the
core of Pirenne's conclusions. Maho-
met et Charlemagne, and Dopsch's Grund-
lagen however much one may disagree
on point of details and on range of implica-
tions have helped historians to realize that
their traditional division of ages was wrong:
Germanic invasions did not mark the be-
ginning of a new era; Arab invasions did.
This is undoubtedly true in so far as
history of culture is concerned. The great
push of the Germans had been preceded
by long interpenetration, and was followed
by thorough fusion of the newcomers into
the mass of the conquered people. The fol-
lowers of Alaric, Theodoric and Clovis

neither wanted to nor could break the
moral unity of the Western Empire, and
its connections with the East. They only
gave a political expression to those particu-
larisms which were already cracking the
surface of the old Roman edifice without
breaking its deep foundations. The Latin
language and Latin literature, however
much their already advanced barbarization
may have been precipitated by the impact
of rude invaders, remained as the common
background of European culture. The
greatest achievements of the mediaeval
"Germanized" world, the Church and the
Empire, were either a heritage or an imi-
tation of Roman institutions. As soon as

From "Mohammed and Charlemagne : A Revision," Speculum, XVIII (January, 1943), 14-38. By
permission of the Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Mass.

58

Mohammed and Charlemagne

59

Europe was again able to produce some-
thing great and original, Roman peoples
again took the lead. Niebelungennot and
the wooden buildings of the Germans were
forgotten for Romanesque and French
("Gothic") architecture, and for the Italian
Divina Corn-media.

On the other hand, wherever the Arabs
stepped on Romanic soil (except in Spain
and in Sicily, outposts which they held for
too short a time), they eradicated the classic
roots forever. A slow but sweeping revolu-
tion won over the masses in Syria, Egypt,
and North Africa to a new civilization,
whose language and religion (these typical
expressions of a people's soul) were the
language and the religion of the conquer-
ors. There was no Arab Romanesque archi-
tecture, and no Arab Imperium. Even
where there was imitation, an original
blend was formed out of three cultures
Graeco-Roman, Persian, and Semitic.

However, neither Pirenne nor Dopsch
lays as much stress on cultural relations as
they do on economic and social conditions.
I shall not discuss here the views of
Dopsch. Let us remark only that, while his
thesis cannot be slighted as an element in
the understanding of the early Middle
Ages, his documentation has been recog-
nized as too scanty and questionable for the
wide inferences which many followers of
Dopsch have drawn. Are the foundations
of Pirenne's economic theory more solid?
At first, one cannot but be struck by the
four "disappearances" which he pointed out
as the symptoms of a disruption of the eco-
nomic unity of the Mediterranean coun-
tries after the Arabic invasions. Papyrus,
Oriental luxury cloths, spices, and gold cur-
rency shrank gradually to the Eastern part
of the Mediterranean; under the Carolin-
gians, Europe had almost entirely aban-
doned their use. Pirenne's documentation
is striking.

And yet, on a close examination, it ap-
pears that the four "disappearances" were
not contemporary either with the Arab
advance or with each other; indeed, it is not
exact to speak of disappearances. Papyrus

was manufactured exclusively in Egypt,
and this province was conquered by the
Arabs between 639 and 641. But it was
only in 692 that the Merovingian chancery
ceased to use papyrus for its official docu-
ments. Other powers of the Christian world
(as we shall see better later) continued to
use papyrus for several centuries after-
wards. Gold money ceased to be struck
in France, apparently, only in the second
half of the eighth century; in Italy, it came
to an abrupt end in or about 800 a date
of no importance for the Caliphate, but a
great date for Europe. Furthermore, there
was a brilliant resumption of gold currency
under Louis the Pious; and gold kept an
important place among the means of ex-
change, at least in Italy and in England,
under the form of foreign and imitated
coins, metallic dust, and ingots. A Belgian
scholar, Sabbe, has recently proved that
there was still a current of importation of
Oriental cloth during the ninth and tenth
centuries. Although his essay does not cover
specifically the trade in spices, occasional
references to it lead us to draw a similar
conclusion.

In the presence of these circumstances, it
seems difficult to maintain a "catastrophic"
thesis, and to envisage Arab conquests as
the cause of a sudden collapse in interna-
tional trade which, in turn, would have
produced sweeping social and economic in-
ternal revolutions. In other words, there
were no sudden changes as an immediate
and direct repercussion of the Arab con-
quests. International trade was not swept
away at one stroke, and "closed economy"
did not spring up at once in the regions
outside the gleam of the Moslem Crescent.
However, new trends slowly asserted them-
selves in the economy of the Western
world. These trends should be related to
conditions existing in the Arab or Byzantine
world, for any disturbance in the European
supply of Oriental wares is likely to orig-
inate in events occurring somewhere in the
East.

We shall have a first clue if we take into
account a circumstance which Pirenne and

60

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

his followers seem to have overlooked:
Three of the "disappearing" goods gold
currency, luxury fabrics, and papyrus
were state monopolies, and their sale had
been subjected to special restrictions ever
since the Roman Empire, A short survey
of these restrictions will be necessary to
understand the whole problem.

Currency has been, and still is, a public
monopoly in almost all civilized states. This
depends chiefly on two causes. On the one
hand, it is felt that issuing the most tangi-
ble and popular symbol of wealth should be
a prerogative of the sovereign power. On
the other hand, it is deemed that state con-
trol is the best means to give to the para-
mount instrument of exchanges universal
credit, a stable standard, and a surety
against counterfeiting. Thus currency is at
the same time a sovereign function what
the Middle Ages called a "regale" and a
device of public interest.

Besides, money can become a source of
public income (in other words, a fiscal mo-
nopoly) if the state can make the people
accept coins at a higher price than the
actual content of their bullion plus cost of
coinage. But this development of currency,
no matter how often a state can resort to it,
is a pathologic phenomenon which sooner
or later defeats the very aims of currency,
and makes it unfit as a means of exchange.
In the Roman Republic and Empire,
money had always been both a symbol of
sovereign power and a device for public
interest. Debasements had taken place re-
peatedly, but the notion that coinage might
be a mere source of income for the state,
variable at the will of the rulers, was never
accepted.

However, there was a distinction and a
hierarchy of metals, the origins of which
can be traced back to similar regulations of
the Persian and Seleucid monarchies. The
state mints for copper and silver were some-
times leased out, at least until a law (393
A.D.) prohibited such a practice and re-
voked all the earlier grants; but gold mints
were never leased out. Silver and copper
money, with both standard and types differ-

ent from those of the state currency, were
allowed to some autonomous municipalities
for local use; but gold was never struck in
local mints. The Senate of the Republic
struck every sort of money; but after the
rise of Augustus, it was left with the right
to strike copper only. Gold and silver state
coinage became a monopoly of the Em-
peror, who also had coppers struck occa-
sionally in the provinces.

When the "Principate" was transformed
into a "Dominate," both Senate coppers and
autonomous municipal coinage of silver
and copper were driven out in a few years
by the extraordinary emissions of debased
coins in the imperial mints. No definite
order of dissolution seems to have been en-
acted; but the mint of the Senate was never
reopened (except under the Ostrogoths),
and local coinage had only sporadic and
short-lived reappearances, as long as the
Roman and the Byzantine Empires lasted.
This extension of imperial monopoly to
every kind of money and every metal must
be connected with the progress of absolut-
ism. Forging coins, striking them in private
workshops, refusing old and worn imperial
money was regarded as a "sacrilegium," or
an act of "laesa maiestas," because it im-
plied an outrage to the effigy of the sov-
ereign impressed on the coins. But motives
of public interest were almost as influential
as this new stress on the sacred character
of money-regale, for in the fourth, fifth, and
sixth centuries there was such an increase
in forgeries, that the only remedy seemed
to be a thorough and undiscriminating state
monopolization.

The rise of barbaric autonomous states
formally subjected to imperial suzerainty
again raised the problem of local currency.
Once more, the view of the Emperors (as
stated by Procopius and confirmed by the
extant coins) was that barbarian kings
should be entided to strike both copper and
silver with their own effigies and names;
but gold could be lawfully struck only with
the portrait and name of the Roman Em-
peror. Along with this pretension went the
Byzantine claim that no foreign prince

Mohammed and Charlemagne

61

could call himself Emperor (Basileus) on
equal terms with the autocrat of Constan-
tinople.

Altogether, these pretensions suffered no
serious challenge for a long time. The
Vandals and the Ostrogoths never struck
gold coins with the effigies of their sover-
eigns. The Visigoths and the Lombards be-
gan to issue gold with their king's portrait
only very late, when they had no longer
anything to fear from the Emperor's wrath.
Theodebert I, the Merovingian, while at
war against Justinian the Great, struck some
personal gold coins which roused the in-
dignation of Procopius; it is true that Jus-
tinian, on his side, hurt the feelings of the
Prankish ruler by assuming the title of
"Francicus," which amounted to a claim to
a triumph over him. After Theodebert, no
Merovingian king struck gold with his own
portrait for some years. When this "usurpa-
tion" was committed again, the Emperor
needed Prankish alliance against the Lom-
bards, too badly to raise complaints. A
similar calculation must have led the
Basileis not only to overlook the gold coin-
age of the Ethiopian kings of Aksum, but
to bestow on them the title of Basileis in
the official correspondence. The common
rival of Byzantium and Aksum, the Sa-
sanian "Shahan Sha" (King of the Kings),
was also called Basileus and regarded as an
equal by the Basileus of Constantinople.
But he eventually abandoned gold cur-
rency, to the great satisfaction of the Byzan-
tine court. His pride could find a compen-
sation in the yearly tribute that the Empire
had to pay to him.

The success of Constantinople in matters
of money-regale was not entirely due to the
prestige and the power of the Emperors.
In Western Europe not only gold, but even
the less valuable metals continued to be
struck in large amounts with the portrait of
the Emperor, because the populace, accus-
tomed to the traditional types, was reluctant
to accept coins of an unusual appearance*
In Persia and in some of the barbaric states,
gold was of little use anyway, because the
exchanges were generally of a modest

amount, and silver was more suitable for
the common needs. Finally, the title of
"rex" had an equivalent in all the Indo-
European languages, while that of u impera-
tor" was proper to Latin only.

Nonetheless, it is an undoubted fact that
the early Germanic rulers recognized some
moral hierarchic superiority of the Emper-
ors in several other respects. As for gold
currency, we cannot say that German kings
did not care about it because they had no
"regalian" notion. On the contrary, the bar-
baric states of Western Europe as a rule
maintained a state monopoly of money.
Even more, both Visigoths and Lombards
apparently followed closely the develop-
ments of eastern Roman law on that matter.
As soon as the Byzantine Empire changed
the penalty to be enforced on money-
counterfeiters, the same modification was
introduced by Receswinth in Spain and by
Rothari in Italy. 1 Besides, Rothari seems to
have re-organized the Lombard mints ac-
cording to an administrative reform of
emperor Heraclius. Only the Merovingian
state followed an opposite course: the very
notion of state monopoly was slowly for-
gotten, and private moneyers began to
strike on private order coins bearing no
other marks than the moneyer's signature,
the customer's name, and the place of emis-
sion. This was because the Merovingian
monarchies during the seventh century
underwent a steady decline of internal co-
hesion and international relations.

The inclusion of some kinds of cloths
and jewelry in the "regalian" monopolies
will not seem surprising, if we remember
that in the late Roman and Byzantine Em-
pires the sovereign impersonated the state,
and- made himself a superhuman being to
the eyes of the populace, even by his ex-
terior appearance. Thus imperial garments
and jewelry were symbols of the nation,
almost like our flag. An offense against
them was really a threat to the stability of

1 Receswindi Cd. 672) was king of the Visigoths;
Rothari Cd. 652) was king of the Lombards, par-
ticularly important for his codification of Lombard
customary law. [Editor s note]

62

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

the regime, and the protection extended to
them could be regarded as a matter of pub-
lic interest. This notion had already ap-
peared in the Oriental monarchies, where
the worship of the sovereign was taken as a
matter of course. But the Romans were
proud of their personal freedom and dig-
nity. As long as they were allowed, they
spoke of "our plebeian purple" (as opposed
to the other peoples' "royal purple") with
a satisfaction similar to our pride in free
speech and popular government.

Only the Late Empire introduced the
worship of the living autocrat, and de-
stroyed even the exterior forms of liberty.
Purple-dyed and gold-embroidered cloths,
and jewelry of several categories were
brought under "regalian" restrictions. A
hierarchy of materials, parallel to the hier-
archy of offices, was established in this
monopoly, as it had been established in
currency. A certain kind of purple and
some special jewels were allowed only to
God, to the saints, and to the sovereigns.
Other ceremonial garments were reserved
to high officers; by that means, they shared
in the veneration owed to the Emperor.
Other cloths even some dyed with pur-
ple or embroidered with gold and silk-
continued to be permitted to the common-
ers. This arrangement was subject to fluc-
tuations, for, in the fifth century, there
were innumerable crimes of "majesty"
that is, private use of imperial garments and
jewels. The only remedy appeared to be to
extend the state monopoly to a much larger
field than the strictly "tabooed" objects.
Little by little, as the citizens made up their
minds to reserve some ornaments to the
sacred person of the sovereign and to his
dignitaries, unnecessary restrictions were
lifted.

When the Western Empire was dismem-
bered, the Byzantine Emperors were able
to defend their monopoly of ceremonial
garments better than that of gold currency.
As a matter of fact, some of the raw mate-
rials (silk, several qualities of purple-dyes,
pearls and other precious stones) could not
be found in Western Europe. Furthermore,

the goldsmiths and clothiers of the Barbar-
ians were often very skilled in their own
way, but they could not reproduce the pat-
terns of Roman aulic art. Thus the Empire
had practically a monopoly of production
and supply. Control of exportation was
sufficient to prevent Barbarian leaders from
robing themselves in garments which they
were not supposed to wear. Not only
"regalian" considerations, but a "premer-
cantilistic" outlook led the Emperors to en-
force on exporters even more drastic restric-
tions than those enforced at home. It was
not convenient to allow gold, precious
stones, and secrets of textile industries to
be taken out of the state.

On the other hand, the Emperors them-
selves used to buy off Barbarian rulers by
fifts of ceremonial garments and jewels,
uch gifts were cautiously dealt out, lest
their value depreciated. Besides, no im-
perial mantles and crowns were given, but
only ornaments allowed to Byzantine high
officers. Thus the donors could feel that
they were enlisting Barbarians in the army
of Byzantine officers and vassals, while the
grantees usually felt pleased and exalted
with the gifts. Likewise, the gift of re-
galian ornaments to churches and clergy
in the West was one of the weapons of the
Byzantine ecclesiastic diplomacy. But the
amount of objects obtained by that means,
captured as war prizes, or smuggled into
Western Europe with the help of bribed
imperial manufacturers and customs-officers,
could never be very large. Furthermore,
some of the Barbaric peoples (although not
all of them) cared little for the shining,
but somewhat effeminate apparel of the
Basil eis. They took more pride in their
national fur garments, spurned by the
Romans, and in Germanic parade armors.
The situation was different in Persia and
in Ethiopia, where both raw materials and
finished objects could be secured without
Byzantine intermediaries. In these coun-
tries, the local ceremonial costumes were
similar to those of the Eastern Empire; in-
deed, the latter repeatedly borrowed Persian
aulic fashions. Apparently the Basileis were

Mohammed and Charlemagne

63

wise enough not to put forward any monop-
olistic claims as regards Ethiopia and Persia.
At any rate, it was less wounding to see
the sovereigns of those very ancient states
dressed in purple than the unpedigreed
rulers of provinces recently belonging to
the Romans.

Papyrus had also been subject to restric-
tions under the Ptolemies, but on a differ-
ent ground. In Hellenistic Egypt nearly all
the wares of some value were under fiscal
monopoly, no matter whether the stability
of the regime or the public welfare required
it or not. While some of these goods were
directly produced and sold by state agents,
more often private entrepreneurs leased out
portions of the monopolistic rights in one
or more provinces. There was no absolute
monopoly on papyrus production, although
many fields were directly cultivated and
exploited by the crown. But the private
producers, apparently, could sell only to the
king the best qualities of papyrus ("basilike
charte," royal papyrus). Moreover, public
notaries were expected to write their instru-
ments on this kind of papyrus, and to pay a
tax on every deed.

It seems that these provisions did not aim
at protecting against forgeries of docu-
ments; they were only one of the number-
less restrictions by which the Ptolemies
fleeced their flock. This is why the Romans,
systematically opposed to fiscal monopolies,
seem to have removed the obstacles against
free commerce. But they maintained the
duty on notarial instruments as a sort of
certification fee.

This tax, however, contained the germ
of the elements for the later growth of a
state monopoly with a purpose of public
interest. As a matter of fact, during the
fifth and sixth centuries the increasing for-
geries of documents led the Emperors to
issue a set of provisions which revived and
completed the ancient restrictions. Notaries
public were obliged again to use only
"basilike charte" for their deeds. This time,
the restrictions did not aim primarily at
securing an outlet for the state production
of papyrus, but rather at bringing under

state control the drawing of legal docu-
ments. The right of selling state papyrus
apparently had been leased out to private
citizens in the provinces; now such leases
were revoked. Justinian ordered that no
notarial instrument drawn in Constanti-
nople should be recognized as authentic,
unless each roll of papyrus had an un-
touched first sheet, which contained the
subscription of the state officers attached to
papyrus administration. Another guarantee
of authenticity was the heading, to be com-
piled according to a definite formula, with
the names of both the ruling sovereign
and the consuls. Particular cautions were
adopted for state documents: Purple ink
must be used for the signature of the Em-
peror; golden seals, with an effigy of the
sovereign like that on golden coins, were
also attached to the most important im-
perial documents. Again, for state docu-
ments issued by members of the imperial
family or by subordinate officers a special,
but inferior set of precautions was adopted.
Silver ink, silver, leaden or clay seals, and
other exterior features pointed out the im-
portance of the various writs, in proportion
to the authority of the writer.

By that way a new field of monopolies
was opened. Obviously their aim could be
qualified as one of public interest. The fact
that the Emperor, and his officers, lent in
different ways the prestige of their names
and portraits, caused restrictions and cau-
tions concerning state and notarial instru-
ments to take on the character of regales.
Forging imperial documents signed with
purple ink, or even using such an ink foi
private writing, was regarded as a crime of
majesty, committed "tyrannico spiritu," and
liable to capital penalty. Forgeries of less
solemn charters were punished by maiming
of a hand.

These laws apparently were taken over,
in a simplified form, both by the Visigoths
and the Lombards, at the same time as
Heraclius* legislation on currency. The
Pope and the bishops, who followed Ro-
man law, seem to have uniformed their
correspondence to the rules set in Constan-

64

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

tinople. Since the production of papyrus was
strictly localized in the Byzantine province
of Egypt, whoever used papyrus (even out-
side the borders of the Empire) had to bow
to the imperial monopoly. On the other
hand, as the monopoly was one of produc-
tion, and not of use like the clothing mo-
nopoly, the supply of lawful writing mate-
rial to the Western chanceries and notaries
went on unhampered.

The appearance of the Arabs among the
great powers of the Mediterranean did not,
at first, bring about such a revolution in the
system of regalian monopolies as it could
have. To be sure, the conquerors could
seize in Egypt and in Syria two Byzantine
state mints, a number of dye-houses for
ceremonial garments, and the whole output
of papyrus. But work was carried on almost
as usual, with unchanged staff and un-
altered standard of production. The Arabs,
as a rule, conserved the existing state of
things wherever they had no definite rea-
sons to change it. They were slow in setting
up regalian monopolies, for they had none
at home. When they did, however, they
were not awkward and half-hearted imi-
tators, like the Germans. On the contrary,
the Arabs built a solid state organization out
of an original blend of Byzantine, Persian
and national institutions.

According to an early tradition, the
Prophet praised himself for having "left to
Mesopotamia its dirhem and its hafiz, to
Syria its mudd and its dinar, to Egypt its
ardeb and its dinar." As a matter of fact,
the bulk of circulation in the early Arab
Caliphate was formed by pre-Arabic Sasan-
ian, Byzantine and a few Himyarite (South-
Arabic) coins, plus new money of the Em-
pire which was currently imported by
merchants. This currency of foreign origin
was soon augmented with domestic imita-
tions, privately struck, of Persian and By-
zantine coins.

We have already remarked that the same
phenomenon occurred with the Germans.
But in the Arab Empire, where civilization
was older and money exchanges were
larger, the period before autonomous cur-

rency would not have lasted so long, but
for peculiar delaying reasons. All the
moneys in use at the time of the Arab con-
quest bore some representations of living
objects, and such figures were unwelcome
(although not altogether prohibited) be-
cause of the Islamic religious principles. On
the other hand, it would have been almost
impossible to get the subject peoples to
accept suddenly money with simple in-
scriptions. J Ali, 2 the champion of the old
indigenous orthodoxy, tried to put out some
non-figured coins but his attempt died with
him.

The simplest solution by far was tolerat-
ing the maintenance of the traditional, un-
official currency. Thus the blame for the
figures could fall upon the foreign rulers
and the unauthorized private moneyers
who had struck the coins. At the most,
some emblems of the Gentile religion were
completed (or replaced after erasure) with
legends praising Allah and Mohammed.
Moreover, even this practice was not alto-
gether immune from the censure of the
most rigid lawyers, because such coins with
their sacred formula were exposed to falling
into the hands of men legally impure. At
last, under Caliph Mu'awiyah, 3 a few cop-
pers were issued on which the portrait of
the Basileus holding a cross was replaced
by that of the Caliph brandishing a sword.
But gold currency, the pride of the Empire,
was not affected; and Mu'awiyah gave a
greater satisfaction to the Emperor, by bind-
ing himself to the payment of a yearly
tribute.

While the currency, destined mainly to
be handled by the Gentile subjects, was not
modified for a long time, the Arabs soon
conformed the drawing of their own state
documents to the precepts of Islam. Seals
had been largely used, even for private
correspondence, before Mohammed; there-

2 *Ali was a son-in-law of Mohammed and was
caliph, 655-661. [Editor's note]
3 Mu'awiyah was the first Omayyad caliph (661-
680) and one of the great Moslem statesmen. He
developed a centralized autocratic administration,
with, headquarters at Damascus, which unified the
Moslem world. [Editor's note]

Mohammed and Charlemagne

65

fore we may cast some doubt on a tradition,
according to which the Prophet had a seal
engraved only when he was told that the
Emperor would not read his letters if un-
sealed. At any rate, we have full evidence
that the seal of the Caliphate was protected
by a special "regalian" notion, as early as
the time of 'Umar I, 4 the conqueror of Syria
and Egypt. A little later, Mu'awiyah or-
ganized an Office of the State Seal, on the
model of a similar Sasanian institution. The
Byzantine papyrus manufacturers in Egypt
were maintained under state control, al-
though it is not clear whether or not the
imperial regulation for monopoly of the
best qualities of papyrus was enforced by
the Arabs without modifications.

For internal use the Arabs adapted the
preparation of chancery materials and
records to the needs of their own state and
religious organization. It is true that some
figures of animals (and, occasionally, even
of men), as well as the cross, were left on
the seals and the protocols, as merely deco-
rative adornments. But the name of the
Basileus and the Christian formulae were
soon replaced by the name of the Caliph
and Islamic sentences. However, on the
papyri which were exported to the Empire
the Christian workers of the papyrus fac-
tories replaced the name of the Basileus,
which obviously could not be written on
the protocol (in Arabic "tiraz"), by an in-
vocation to the Trinity. This arrangement,
worked out or tolerated by the Islamic offi-
cers, was advantageous for both the Empire
and the Caliphate. The former secured the
usual supply of a material necessary to the
chancery and the notaries for Justinian's
laws, which ordered the use of papyrus
with untouched protocols, were still in
force. The Arabs, on their side, drew large
profits from this exportation, and, in that
way, secured a continuous inflow of that
Byzantine gold which formed the bulk of
their currency.

An arrangement of the same kind was

4 'Umar I was the caliph (634-644) under whom
Islam expanded religiously and politically over
Syria, Egypt, and Persia. [Editor's note]

worked out for embroidered ceremonial
cloths. It was an Arabic use modeled,
apparently, on a Persian custom, for no evi-
dence of a similar practice can be found on
Byzantine cloths before the so-called Byzan-
tine Middle Ages that a "tiraz" with the
name of the Caliph and religious sentences
should be embroidered on all ceremonial
cloths. But on the tissues which were ex-
ported into Christian countries only an in-
vocation to the Trinity was applied.

This unwritten compromise was broken
by the real founder of the Arab adminis-
trative machinery, 'Abd al-Malik. 5 He could
not think of reforms in the first years of his
reign, for he was engaged in an all-out civil
war against 'Abdallah ibn-az-Zubair; in-
deed, for the sake of peace he had even to
increase the yearly tribute to the Emperor
(686 or 687 A.D.). But, as soon as the
danger was overcome, the Caliph resolutely
inaugurated a new policy, with the double
aim of consolidating the central power, and
of offering some satisfaction to the orthodox
Arab element, from which came the main
support of the enemies of his dynasty. The
brother of ibn-az-Zubair had coined a num-
ber of small silver dirhems; 'Abd al-Malik
ordered them to be broken up, thus show-
ing a decidedly "regalian" viewpoint. Then
he ordered the invocation to the Trinity
and the cross on the "tiraz" of the papyri
and cloths destined for export replaced by
Moslem formulae. Emperor Justinian II,
who evidently did not want to break the
advantageous treaty of 686-687, tried re-
peatedly to obtain the withdrawal of those
provisions by large gifts; he always met
with a refusal. Finally his rash and violent
character prevailed over diplomatic tact He
threatened the Caliph with putting an out-
rageous inscription against the Prophet on
his gold coins, which (as he thought) the
Arabs could not help using.

But the Caliph was now the stronger.
As a reprisal, he entirely prohibited the
exportation of papyrus, and inaugurated a

5 'Abd al-Malik was caliph 685-705. [Editor's
note]

66

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

national gold and silver currency, of the
same type as the figured coppers of
Mu'awiyah. He thought of making the
new coins acceptable to the Byzantine pride
(or was it a refinement of jest: 3 ) by sending
the first specimen of this new money as a
part of the yearly tribute; besides, he prom-
ised to keep accepting the Byzantine gold
currency in his own states. But when Jus-
tinian saw his own humiliation brought
home to him, under the form of the coins
bearing the name and the portrait of 'Abd
al-Malik, he decided that the only issue left
was war. Unfortunately, he was abandoned
on the battlefield by the contingent of
Slavs, on whom he relied. The Arabs, who
had hoisted on their lances the broken
treaty, gained a complete victory.

Nevertheless, the pretensions of the By-
zantine rulers were satisfied in a way. The
portrait of a Caliph on coins hurt the feel-
ings of the orthodox "fukaha" as much as
those of the Basileus, although the reasons
for complaint were different. 'Abd al-Malik
had succeeded in introducing into circula-
tion a national type of coin; he soon took
a further step, and had money coined like
that of 'Ali, without any figure or personal
symbol. After a short period of transition,
when both figured and non-figured coins
circulated together, the new type, bearing
only pious inscriptions, affirmed itself.
Ever since, the currency of Moslem dynas-
ties has been without figures, with only a
few exceptions. Even the recollection that
there had been Islamic figured coins was
eventually lost.

It would be incautious to dismiss the
whole history of this "regalian" war by
ascribing it to the "foolishness" of Justinian
and to the "diabolic shrewdness" of 'Abd
al-Malik, as do some later Byzantine chroni-
clers, bitterly adverse to the Emperor. To
be sure, Justinian II was one of the worst
men who ever sat on the Byzantine throne.
But the war was more than a collision be-
tween a hot and cool head. It was a chal-
lenge between an old civilization, proud
of its religious tradition and world power,
and a new state, which had to make room

for the set-up of its own sacred formulae
and sovereign prerogatives. A few years
later, when the successor of Justinian,
Philippicus, inaugurated a religious policy
sharply hostile to the Pope, the Romans
showed their solidarity with the latter by
rejecting all the documents and the coins
bearing the seal or the portrait of the im-
pious Basileus. This proves that now the
respect for the regalian character of moneys
was not merely an artificial imposition of
the rulers, but let us repeat it a popular
feeling comparable with our reverence for
the national flag.

The regalian notion of currency and of
"tiraz" (both on ceremonial cloths and on
public documents) almost at once took
deep roots in the Caliphate, and in the vari-
ous Moslem states which sprang up on its
farthest provinces. Monopolistic state fac-
tories were established everywhere, with
the same functions as those of the Byzan-
tine Empire. The sovereign, and some
members of his family or of his court ap-
pointed by him, reserved to themselves the
right to put their names on the inscriptions
of regalian objects. A hierarchy of mate-
rials in each kind of monopolies, corre-
sponding to the hierarchy of officers, was
established by custom if not, perhaps, by
law: Gold silver copper for coins; differ-
ent qualities of garments; probably, also
different kinds of charters. To be sure,
restrictions were never as extended as in
the Empire. To give only some instances,
mints were often leased out; in Egypt, state
textile manufacturies were set up only to
give the finishing touch to cloths prepared
in private workshops; the maiming penalty
for infringers of regalian monopolies was
suggested and enforced on several occa-
sions, but it could never prevail against the
stubborn hostility of nationalistic lawyers.
But, altogether, the new regalian policy of
Moslem rulers after 'Abd al-Malik stressed
the same points which so far had been
maintained by the Greeks.

As regards papyrus, the Arabs were in
the same position as the Byzantine Empire
before the loss of Egypt. They had the

Mohammed and Charlemagne

67

monopoly of production; if the other coun-
tries wanted any papyrus at all, they had
to accept it as it was produced by the
Moslem factories. Rather than waive the old
laws on chancery and notarial instruments,
the Basileis seem to have adapted them-
selves to the new situation. They continued
to use papyrus, as is demonstrated by the
earliest letter of a Byzantine Emperor of
which an original fragment has come down
to us (beginning of the ninth century).
But, since the manufacturers no longer
inscribed on the protocols the invocation to
the Trinity, the Emperors transferred this
invocation to the heading of the documents.
Only in the tenth century, when Egypt
itself ceased to manufacture papyrus be-
cause paper had replaced it all over the
Arab states, was it necessary for the Greek
chancery to adopt parchment.

The Roman regulation for the drawing
of authentic documents was generally
observed by the Popes, the Church, and
the Byzantine territories of Italy. For in-
stance, the consular date is found on most
of the Papal documents, and on many
private sources of the Roman region, until
the first years of the tenth century. Papyrus
was the only material used for formal Papal
charters until the end of that century
with only one exception and did not dis-
appear entirely until 1057. A bull of John
VII (year 876), which has been preserved
with parts of the original protocol, bears on
it the invocation to Allah, according to the
regulation of 'Abd al-Malik. Papyrus was
also widely used by bishops until the late
eighth century; indeed, we know at least
one episcopal letter written on that material
as late as 977. We know many Roman
private documents on papyrus of the same
period; the last one is of 998. Urban docu-
ments of Ravenna, a Byzantine city until
751, and, later a center of studies in Roman
Law, are on papyrus until the middle of
the tenth century. Those are the instances
which we can ascertain; on the other hand,
the very largest part of papyri from Western
Europe has certainly not come down to us,
because this writing material, unlike parch-

ment, is extremely perishable except in a
dry climate. In conclusion, we can well
say that wherever the Roman regulation
was observed, the disappearance of papyrus
was not caused by the Arab conquests, but
by the victory of paper three centimes later.

In the barbaric states, however, Roman
law was melting away. No consular dates
are found in the secular documents of
Lombard, Italy, France, and Germany. In
a few private charters the words "sub die
consule," without any indication of the
consul's name, are the only relics of a
forgotten formula, added by sheer force of
habit. Force of habit led the Merovingian
royal chancery to use imported papyrus
until 692, although parchment, which could
be easily produced at home, began occasion-
ally to be used from 670 on. But in 692
the embargo enforced by } Abd al-Malik cut
the supply entirely for some time. When
this embargo was lifted, the Merovingian
chancery did not go back to a costly material
which had been purchased only out of
respect to a vanishing tradition.

Unfortunately, no original documents of
the Lombard chancery have come down to
us. But all our knowledge of them, although
indirect, leads us to think that not only
the royal charters, but even those of the
dukes were written on papyrus. This may
explain why they all have perished. On
the other hand, the earliest Italian private
document on parchment which has come
down to us, a notarial deed from Piacenza,
dates from 716 that is, twenty-eight years
later than the Arab embargo. We may infer
that the tradition of Roman law was still
the stronger in Italy, in so far as state and
church documents were concerned. But
the reform of 'Abd al-Malik probably
affected private instruments in Italy in the
same way as it affected royal charters in
France. In Germany, too, the earliest docu-
ments on parchment which have been
preserved are of the second quarter of the
eighth century. Thus it would seem that
where Roman legal traditions declined, the
introduction of parchment for royal or
notarial documents was not brought about

68

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

directly by the Arab conquest of Egypt,
fait })y the organization of Arab state
monopolies, fifty years later.

When we compare Merovingian and
Carolingian currency, we are naturally led
to regard those two periods as separated by
a sharp contrast. First we have mainly
golden coins with a portrait; then we find
chiefly silver coins with an inscription.
However, the transition took place over a
long time. The output of silver coins became
abundant in France as early as the last years
of the sixth century long before Moham-
med and the decline of the Merovingians.
On the other hand, it is true that the
proportion of gold in circulation decreased
steadily under the late Merovingians, and
that no gold at all seems to have been struck
by Pepin the Short (though we cannot
exclude that some such coin may be even-
tually yielded by a new find); but gold
money was struck under Charlemagne and,
even more, under Louis the Pious. Like-
wise, the shift from figured to non-figured
money was gradual and progressive during
the sixth and seventh centuries. We have
no figured coins of Pepin, but we have
many of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.

A connection of this gradual, though
interrupted decrease of gold coins with a
steady decrease in the volume of exchanges
cannot be doubted. On the other hand, the
decline of portraiture on coins must be
connected with both the general decline of
art, and the decadence of the sovereign
power. Silver is more convenient than gold
for small exchanges; unskilled moneyers
will prefer easy epigraphic types, unless a
sovereign insists on advertising his own
portrait on coins. These trends, let us repeat
it, appeared earlier than the Arab invasions,
and therefore cannot have been caused
directly and exclusively by them. Pepin
the Short was the first who tried to bring
back some uniformity in currency, and to
restore partially the regalian monopoly,
which the "rois faineants" had allowed to
melt away. The easiest path towards uni-
formity obviously was to stress the existing

trends, and to suppress altogether the fig-
ured golden coins, relics of a dying past.
The political, artistic and economic renais-
sance under Charlemagne and Louis I was
incomplete and ephemeral; so was the
revival of figured and golden currency
during their reigns.

These observations take into no account
the possible influence of Arab invasions,
but do not exclude that there may have
been such an influence. However, we must
remark again a circumstance that Pirenne
and his followers seem to have overlooked:
the period of Arab conquest in the East,
and even in Spain, is not one of sudden
changes in the Merovingian currency.
Comparatively sweeping changes occurred
only \vhen an autonomous dynasty took
power over Spain. This region had gold
currency under both the Visigoths and the
officers of the central Caliphate. But the
first independent Cordovan ruler, 'Abd al-
Rahman I a contemporary of Pepin the
Short seems to have refrained both from
striking gold and from assuming the title
of Caliph, because another man ruled as
Caliph (although unlawfully) over the
Holy Cities of the Moslems. Only in the
tenth century, after the Eastern Caliphate
was practically dominated by the Turkish
guard, did 'Abd al-Rahman III assume the
title of Caliph at Cordova. At the same
time, he began regularly to strike gold. It
is quite possible that the influence of the
silver standard in a neighbor state led Pepin
to carry out the complete abandonment of
the gold standard in his own kingdom.

Likewise, the example of the epigraphic
currency of the Arabs very likely encour-
aged Prankish moneyers to abandon entirely
the striking of figured coins, inasmuch as
these coins were struck mainly in Provence,
at the doorstep of Spain. This influence
could not be felt before the second quarter
of the eighth century, for in Spain the
Arabs did not suppress at once the figured
coins. To sum up, we may assume that the
new trends in Prankish currency, begun
"before the Arab conquests , were not influ-

Mohammed and Charlemagne

69

enced by the trade disruption that these
conquests may have caused, but by 'parallel
trends of Arab currency in Spain.

Islamic epigraphic currency not only
influenced silver and copper coinage in the
barbaric states of Western Europe, but even
those gold coins, which had been regarded
as the paramount show-place for the royal
effigy. The only coins of this metal that
Charlemagne struck in France (at Uzes,
not far from the Arab border) are epi-
graphic. His contemporary, Offa, the
Mercian king, struck gold with his name in
Latin letters and a legend in Arabic, copied
from an Abasside dinar; even the date was
that of the Hegira, 157 (774 A.D.). Imita-
tions of this kind grew more and more
abundant until the thirteenth century. Thus
the Arab dinar partly replaced the Byzan-
tine nomisma as a model for the currency
of Western Europe. Now this phenomenon
is certainly not the symptom of a crisis in
trade brought about by the Arabs; on the
contrary, it shows that the Arab merchants
for some time surpassed the Greeks.

Once more, the Lombard kingdom pre-
sented a different picture. While the Arabic
states had no common borders with it, the
Byzantine Empire enveloped it from almost
every side, and even wedged into its central
part. There was a continuous exchange of
influences between the barbaric and the
Byzantine mints of Italy; the mint of
Ravenna passed from the Greeks to the
Lombards a few months before Pepin began
his work of restoration of state control on
money in France. State control was never
waived in the Lombard kingdom, and coin-
age remained faithful to the figured type,
although, here too, artistic decadence caused
legends to cover a larger and larger part of
the coins. Furthermore, the predominance
of the gold standard was never challenged;
indeed, the quantity of silver in circulation
seems to have been very scanty, as it was
in the Empire. On the other hand, figured
coins and the gold standard had remained
paramount also in the Visigothic kingdom
until it was conquered by the Arabs. Gold

emissions took place more than once in
England from the time of Offa to that of
Edward the Confessor. Thus we may con-
clude that the new trends in Merovingian
and early Carolingian currency were only
local phenomena.

It must be pointed out that Lombard gold
coinage after Rothari did not bear the
portrait of the Byzantine Emperor (except
for the local currency of the dukes of
Benevento), but that of the national king.
Therefore, it constituted a challenge to the
imperial regalian pretensions the only
challenge still existing since the Arabs and
the Franks had adopted epigraphic types,
and the Visigothic kingdom had been over-
run. This challenge was not removed by
Charlemagne when he conquered Italy.
Lombard mints merely replaced on golden
coins the portrait and the name of the
national king with those of the new ruler.
Meanwhile, in France, only epigraphic
coinage was carried on as before. But there
was a sudden change after Charlemagne
was crowned emperor. Gold currency was
discontinued all over his states, except for
the epigraphic coins of Uzes, which were
still in circulation in 813, despite some
complaints of a council. The epigraphic
currency of silver and copper was with-
drawn, and replaced everywhere by coins
of classic inspiration, bearing the portrait
of the Emperor crowned with laurels, his
name, and the imperial title.

There can be no doubt that the establish-
ment of uniform standards for the whole
empire was a step towards centralization.
But it remains to be explained why the
Byzantine figured type was chosen for silver
and copper, and why such little gold as was
still in circulation kept the epigraphic type.
We are more likely to find a clue in
Charlemagne's relations with the Byzantine
Empire, than in the consequences of Arab
invasions which occurred one century
earlier or more! In fact, Charlemagne's as-
sumption of the imperial title was certainly
a hard blow to the Byzantine pretensions.
Since the disappearance of the Sasanian

70

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

and Aksumite monarchies, no foreign ruler
had yet dared to style himself an Emperor.
All the contemporary sources agree in point-
ing out that Charlemagne realized the
gravity of his act. He made every possible
effort to appease the Byzantine pride, and
to secure some recognition of his title from
the legitimate emperor of Constantinople.
On the other hand, it has been remarked
that he did not call himself "Romanorum
imperator," like the Basileus, but "Impera-
tor . . . Romanorum gubernans imperium."
This title, being a little more modest than
the other one, could possibly sound more
acceptable to Constantinople than a for-
mula implying absolute parity.

It may be suggested that the abandon-
ment of figured gold currency, which re-
moved the last challenge to the Byzantine
monopoly, was another good-will move,
intended to pave the way for an under-
standing. A similar arrangement had been
worked out between Byzantium and Persia,
and its memory had not been forgotten.
Thus, in Italy, gold coinage was abandoned
altogether, for it would have been difficult
to persuade Italians to accept unusual non-
figured coins. In France, epigraphic golden
money was not a new thing; still, even
there, it aroused complaints, apparently
because it lent itself to forgery.

If our interpretation may be accepted, we
shall infer that Charlemagne's monetary
reforms were not prompted by the progress
of Arab invasions, hut, primarily, loy con-
siderations of good-neighbor policy towards
the Byzantine Empire. Obviously this does
not imply that the economic background
had nothing to do with these reforms.
Probably Charlemagne would not have
sacrificed figured gold coinage to reconcilia-
tion with the Basileis unless the prestige
and the economic usefulness of gold had
already lost so much ground in France; to
a large extent, his reforms were the comple-
tion of those of Pepin. But in Italy the
economic situation did not justify the aban-
donment of gold. Since no new coins of
this metal were produced at home after
Charlemagne, foreign gold coins (Arabic

and Byzantine) took the place of the old
Lombard currency all over the peninsula.

In 806, when the relations with the
Eastern Empire were at their worst, Charle-
magne did not even mention the imperial
dignity in his division of his states among
his sons. But an understanding, implying
the recognition of Charlemagne as "impera-
tor et basileus" by the Byzantine ambassa-
dors, was finally reached in 812 at Aix-
la-Chapelle. In the same place (not in
Rome!), one year later, the old emperor
placed the crown on the head of Louis the
Pious and ordered him to be called "imper-
ator et Augustus/' In 814 Louis succeeded
to the throne; he maintained passably good
diplomatic relations with the Emperors of
the East. The Basileis were drawn to a
friendly attitude by their hope of securing
the help of the second Carolingian "em-
peror" against the Arabs and the Bulgarians;
but this hope was not realized. Much worse
(at least, worse to the eyes of the cere-
monial-conscious Byzantine Emperors),
Louis felt bold enough to strike gold coins
with his own name and portrait, of the
same type as Charlemagne's imperial silver
and copper. The obverse of these coins bore
a crown with the words "minus divinum,"
implying that Louis was emperor by the
grace of God, and not a sort of a cadet of
his Eastern brother. It is true that this
affirmation of power was not made from
an Italian mint, even though Italy would
have been the most appropriate soil on
which to start gold currency again. The
gold coinage of Louis was struck in that
part of his empire which was the farthest
from the Byzantine border, and the nearest
to those uncivilized Germanic tribes which
were still likely to be dazzled by the prestige
of figured gold money. But, on their side,
the Basileis Michael and Theophilus called
themselves, in a letter to Louis, "in ipso Deo
imperatores Romanorum." They branded
him as "regi Francorum et Langobardorum
et vocato eorum Imperatori!"

The ecclesiastic conflict for the parity of
Constantinople with Rome, and for the
Bulgarian church, gave the last blows to

Mohammed and Charlemagne

71

the crumbling compromise of Aix-la-Cha-
pelle. When the balance of powers was
definitely broken by the partition of the
Western Empire, and by the accession of
the energetic Macedonian dynasty in the
East, Basil I formally withdrew the Byzan-
tine recognition of the imperial rank of the
Carolingian monarchs. Louis II could only
send a diplomatic note, where he reminded
Basil that, at any rate, the title of "basileus"
had been granted in the past to many rulers
both heathen and Christians. But his
protest remained unanswered. Under these
circumstances, Louis II could well have
retaliated by resuming gold currency. The
princes of Benevento struck regularly gold
money, and we know that for some years
Louis II had silver struck in Benevento
with his own name and imperial title. No
golden coins of Louis have come down to
us; but we cannot make much of a proof
"ex silentio," since his power over Benevento
lasted seven years only. Afterwards, Bene-
vento recognized Byzantine overlordship; it
is remarkable that no gold seems to have
been struck there after this recognition.

At any rate, gold has always been essen-
tially the instrument of international trade
as Marc Bloch has pointed out. For local
trade silver was usually sufficient. Gold
coins, if internationally accepted, were a
vehicle of prestige for the ruler whose name
and effigy they bore; but not every ruler's
name could give international credit to
golden coins. Already in the eighth century,
the long intermission of gold coinage in
France had caused Prankish money to dis-
appear from those internationally accepted.
Louis the Pious tried to go against the
stream; but only the Frisians and the Saxons
were impressed by his prestige enough to
use widely his golden coins, and even to
carry on for some time domestic imitations
of them. But the powerless successors of
Louis, who were not even able to maintain
the sovereign monopoly of currency, could
have no hope of persuading international
merchants to carry along Prankish gold
instead of the famous Byzantine nomismata
and Moslem dinar. In conclusion, the

definitive abandonment of the gold stand-
ard after Louis the Pious -was not directly
connected with the Arab invasions, hut de-
fended on the insufficient prestige of the
Western monarchs. Only when the prestige
of both the Greeks and Arabs declined, in
the thirteenth century was it possible to

resume the striking of gold in Western

n & &

Jburope.

If neither the "disappearance" of papyrus
nor that of gold currency is connected with
a sudden regression in trade caused by the
Arab conquests, the thesis of Pirenne has
little support left. As a matter of fact, the
evidence collected in the above-mentioned
essay of Sabbe is more than sufficient to
prove that the trade of Oriental purple-
dyed and embroidered cloths was never in-
terrupted in Western Europe. At the most,
we can suppose that this trade suffered a
temporary depression although there are
no grounds for this supposition, and, at any
rate, no comparative statistics can be drawn
when sources are casual, scant, and far be-
tween. Nevertheless, for the sake of a fur-
ther demonstration, we shall assume that
there was a depression. Must such a hypo-
thetical trend be connected with a general
disruption of trader 1

First of all, we should take into account
the trends in matters of etiquette and cos-
tumes. Let us repeat that the value of a
symbol does not reach farther than the con-
vention on which the symbol is based. A
flag would have been a scrap of cloth in
the Roman Republic. The Huns and most
of the early Germans did not care for im-
perial purple. Now we may agree with
Halphen in discounting as a sheer inven-
tion the witty anecdote of the Monk of
Saint Gall, where Charlemagne is shown
playing a cunning trick on his officers, who
had preferred refined Oriental garments to
the simple national costumes. Still the
anecdote is doubtless evidence of a wide-
spread attitude of the Franks when the
Monk was writing, in the second half of
the ninth century. Another source relates
that Charles the Bald, after being crowned
by John III, wore a Byzantine ceremonial

72

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

dress, and drew upon himself the blame of
his subjects for spurning "the tradition of
the Prankish kings for the Greek vanity."
Again the source is unfair to Charles al-
though the "Hellenism" of this sovereign,
expecially in regalian matters, is an un-
doubted fact. But the ground chosen to
put blame on Charles must express an
actual sentiment.

In conclusion, the diminished use of
Oriental cloths among the laymen (if there
was a diminution) depended to a great ex-
tent on a change in fashions. The Church
did not change fashions, and, in fact, the
largest 'part of the existing evidence of
Oriental cloths in Western Europe relates
to the Church.

On the other hand, we must remember
that the regalian monopoly of cloths and
jewelry unlike the monopolies of cur-
rency and papyrus did not cover only
manufacturing and trade, but the use itself
of many qualities of these objects. The ex-
pressions of the Byzantine 'Itommerldarioi"
(customs-officers), as related by Liudprand 6
in the tenth century, are significant. The
Greeks maintained that the wearing of
cloths dyed with special qualities of purple
(including some which were not reserved
to the emperor and to the high officers)
should be allowed only to the Byzantine
nation, "as we surpass all other nations in
wealth and wisdom." Thus the monopoly
of cloths, like that of gold currency, had
ceased to be an arbitrary imposition of the
government, and had taken roots in popu-
lar feelings.

A very meticulous and complex set of
provisions (which we know in detail only
for the tenth century, but based to a large
extent on laws of the late Roman Empire)
established various categories of cloths, ac-
cording to qualities of dye and to size.
Some categories could be exported without
restrictions, some were vetoed to exporters,
some could be purchased only in limited

6 Liudprand (ca. 922-972), Bishop of Cremona
and an important historian. The work here cited
is an account of his mission (for Otto I) to Con-
stantinople in 968. [Editor's note]

amounts. Subjects of the Empire (such as
the Venetians and the citizens of some
Southern Italian cities) and merchants of
some allied countries (such as Bulgarians
and Russians) enjoyed special facilities by
treaty. But in no case was unlimited ex-
portation granted. Even churches and mon-
asteries, if located in foreign countries,
could not get Byzantine ceremonial objects
for their shrines without special permission
by the Basileus. Foreign ambassadors had
to submit their luggage to the visit of the
"kommerkiarioi," whose final inspection
completed the usual, permanent control of
the cloth market and of the jewelry-shops
entrusted to special city officers.

Under these circumstances, the largest
source of supply for Western Europe prob-
ably was the already mentioned custom of
the' Emperors of sending ceremonial ob-
jects as diplomatic gifts. Some Emperors
dispensed such gifts lavishly both to foreign
princes and to churches. But those monarchs
who felt little necessity to win over allies
or to conciliate the Western Church for
instance, the great Iconoclasts, contempo-
rary of Charles Martel and Pepin the Short
were much stricter. As late as the tenth
century, Constantinus Porphyrogenitus
warned his son against complying with the
requests for imperial crowns, stoles and
cloths, which were so frequently advanced
by the Mongolic and Slavonic neighbors
of the Empire. These stoles and crowns, he
said (and he almost believed it) were not
made by human hands, but sent from
Heaven by the Angels themselves.

To be sure, there was another source of
supply: smuggling. Vigilant and numerous
as they were, the controllers could not see
everything; and they were only too often
bribable at will. If we should believe the
unfair account of Liudprand, at the time
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus even the
prostitutes in Italy could bestow on them-
selves the very ornaments which the Angels
had intended for the august Basileus only.
But Liudprand grossly exaggerates. The
price itself of Oriental cloths, the cost of
transportation, and the bribe for the com-

Mohammed and Charlemagne

73

plaisant officers must have reserved to very
few Westerners the pleasure of bootlegged
goods, even under as weak an emperor as
Constantlne VII. When the power was in
the hands of a man "tachucheir," with a
long reach (such as Nicephorus Phocas),

smuggling must have been practicallv

LI }

impossible.

However, Oriental cloths could be pur-
chased in Arabic-ruled countries, too. It is
true that since 'Abd al-Malik a monopoly
had been established, and that Moslem
rulers, in general, were more sparing than
the Basileis in their diplomatic gifts of
cloths. But, as a rule, the restrictions en-
forced by Islamic princes were not as tight
as those of the Eastern Empire. This ex-
plains why many great personages of West-
ern Europe including clergymen and cru-
saders displayed on many occasions glow-
ing ceremonial garments, where the praise
of Allah was embroidered in the "tiraz," in
words luckily unintelligible to most of the
bearers of such a cloth!

To sum up, any fluctuation which may
be noticed in the supply of Oriental cloths
is likely to stem from a fluctuation in the
efficiency of state control or in the system
of alliances of the Byzantine and Arab gov-
ernments. The rise of the Aral? "Empire, far
from curtailing supply, made it a little less
difficult to obtain cloth, because of the
Arabs looser notion of regalian monopoly.

Of fluctuations in the trade of spices we
know but little. Some of the documents
quoted by Sabbe show that spices too were
occasionally imported into Western Europe,
right at the time when Pirenne speaks of
disappearance. But, unfortunately, we have
no specific essay on that question, I shall
give only a few general remarks, which are
a suggestion of fields for investigation,
rather than matter-of-fact statements.

Once more, the evolution of taste should
be taken into account. Were the tough
noblemen and the rough ecclesiastic gran-
dees of early medieva^ Western Europe as

fond of spiced food as the Romans and the
men of the Renaissance? We know that
the latter were persons of a nice palate. The
gastronomic history of the early Middle
Ages has not been expounded as yet in
detail, but the hypothesis of a coarser taste
may be not altogether unlikely.

On the other hand, the spices arrived
from countries so different and far apart,
that it is not enough to connect the fluc-
tuations in supply with the general rela-
tions between the zArab world and Western
Europe. Revolutions which occurred in the
Asiatic Far East, or in Dark Africa, may
have affected the spice trade very deeply.
In 1343, according to an Italian chronicler,
a war between the Golden Horde and the
Genoese colonies in Crimea caused spices
to rise from fifty to one hundred per cent
in price. It should be expected that crises
of the same kind w r ere caused by Asiatic
wars of the early Middle Ages. Now the
eighth century, which saw the rise of the
Carolingians in Western Europe, was an
epoch of troubles for Eastern Asia. India
was going through the crisis which fol-
lowed the defeat of Buddhism and the tri-
umph of Rajput "feudalism." While the
Arabs invaded the Sindh in 712, Hindu-
stan was being split into a great number
of petty states. The Chinese T'ang dynast} 7 ,
after reaching the peak of its power in the
seventh century, suffered severe blows. In
751 the Arabs stopped the Chinese expan-
sion in Central Asia (battle of Talas). Be-
tween 755 and 763 the emperors, driven
out of their capital by a revolution, asked
the help of the Uighurs to retake the city
a remedy worse than the sore. In 758, the
Moslems sacked and burned Canton. These
do not seem very favorable circumstances
for the continuity of trade relations. But
the situation gradually improved in the
ninth century, and, in fact, evidence of
spices in Western Europe grows less scant
in that century.

EAST AND WEST IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

E SECOND POINT we have to investi-
gate is the problem of continuity.
Granted that alternations of better and
worse periods are unavoidable in any pro-
tracted economic activity, and that large
scale commerce in early mediaeval Catholic
Europe cannot be expected at any period,
can we assume that commercial relations
with the Byzantine and Muslim world were
never interrupted, or do we have to look for
a total eclipse at a certain moment?

For the fifth, sixth, and early seventh
centuries the question does not arise. Vir-
tually nobody believes any more that the
barbarian invasions of the fifth century
marked a sharp turn in economic history,
although most historians will admit that the
meeting of German immaturity with Roman
decrepitude accelerated the process of dis-
integration whose first symptoms can be
traced as far back as the age of the
Antonines. The sixth century culminated
in the partial restoration of Mediterranean
unity under Byzantine auspices. Astride
that century and the following one the
letters of Gregory I give us a full docu-
mentation of continuing, if thinned out,
intercourse between the Mediterranean East
and virtually all parts of Europe. Under
Justinian, China had unwittingly made its
earliest contribution to the economic equip-
ment of Europe the silkworm and in
the time of Heraclius 1 Egyptian ships again
crossed the strait of Gibraltar to obtain
English tin. Slowly but steadily, the West-

1 Heraclius, a Byzantine Emperor, 610-641. [Edi-
tor's note]

ern barbarians rebuilt a network of commu-
nications with one another, ultimately
leading to the more refined East. Countries
which in antiquity had been almost un-
touched by Rome, such as Ireland and the
Baltic regions, now began to look toward
Constantinople. What commerce has lost
in intensity was partly compensated for by
gains in geographic expansion.

Paradoxically, the absolution of the back-
ward Germans paved the way for an indict-
ment of the progressive Arabs. While some
scholars were content with mild accusations
and roundabout charges the Arabs weak-
ened the international trade of the Mediter-
ranean by moving the economic center of
gravity eastwards to Irak and Persia, or by
touching off a Byzantine reprisal blockade
across the traditional sea routes Henri
Pirenne made the Arabs squarely and
directly responsible for pulling an iron
curtain which separated the Believers from
the Infidels and left Europe an economic
and cultural dead end. His superb pleading
and his personal charm won many converts.
Nevertheless, a large number of scholars
the majority, I should say were not con-
vinced. For the last twenty years nearly all
that has been written on early mediaeval
economic history has reflected the heat of
the controversy on 'les theses d'Henri
Pirenne." Probably the law of diminishing
returns should persuade us to move on to
equally controversial and less belabored
fields. This does not exempt us, however,
from recalling briefly the main issues. Inas-
much as I have long been an admirer of

From R. S. Lopez, "East and West in the Early Middle Ages: Economic Relations." Paper read in
1955 at Tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, convening in Rome. Printed in Relazioni
del X Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche, vol. Ill, pp. 129-137. G. C. Sansoni Editore,
Firenze. Reprinted by permission of G. C. Sansoni and Professor Lopez.

74

East and West in the Early Middle Ages

75

Pirenne but an opponent of "Mahomet et
Charlemagne/' I shall not pretend imparti-
ality.

It has been argued that Arab regular
fleets and piratical parties made the Medi-
terranean impassable for Christian ships at
one time or another. For short intervals and
in specific areas, this is an undeniable fact.
To the many instances cited by Pirenne and
his followers I would like to add a testimony
they overlooked: the Life of St. Gregory
Decapolites (780-842). It describes the
Byzantine ships and sailors of Ephesus as
bottled up in the port for fear of Islamic
pirates, a ship of Enos as chased along a
river by Slavic pirates, and navigation from
Corinth to Rome as extremely dangerous
on account of Sicilian pirates. Still it is
obvious that pirates could not have multi-
plied and survived without trade to prey
upon. There always were calmer interludes
and fairly safe detours; and even the worst
hurdles could be leaped over by fast block-
ade runners or smashed through by heavily
protected convoys. To be sure, all of this
made the high cost of transportation still
higher; but the cost was not the main
consideration in the international trade of
the early middle ages, which both before
and after the coming of the Arabs consisted
above all of luxury wares and war materials.
At any rate, war hazards are far from in-
compatible with commercial expansion and
trade in cheaper goods. In the thirteenth
century both war risks and the volume of
trade in the Mediterranean world grew to
unprecedented amounts.

It has been claimed, openly or by impli-
cation, that the conflict between Muslims
and Christians differed from other collisions
in the Mediterranean because it was an
"antagonism between two creeds" or, in-
deed, between "two worlds mutually foreign
and hostile." Even on theoretical grounds,
this contention is questionable. Their paths
diverged more and more with time, but
originally both the Arabs and the Germans
were wanderers who adopted Greco-Roman
institutions and Hebraic monotheism. In
the eyes of Christian theologians, Moham-

med was a heretic, not a pagan; in the words
of Muslim lawyers, the Christians were a
"people of the Book," not heathens who
ought to be either converted or killed. Of
course there was mutual hatred and name
calling, though probably not as much as
during and after the Crusades; but hatred
does not occur solely between peoples of a
different creed. It certainly did not prevent
political and economic intercourse. To cite
only a few illustrations from the Carolingian
period, in 813 the ambassadors of the
Aghlabid 2 emir aboard a Venetian convoy
aided the Christian crew in attacking a
convoy of Spanish Muslims. Then they
proceeded to Sicily, to renew with the
Byzantine governor the agreement which
ensured to the citizens of each country the
right to travel and trade in the other. A few
years later, the Bishop and Duke of Naples
a Christian port which had welcomed
Muslim ships as early as 722 joined the
rulers of Amalfi and Gaeta in an alliance
with the Muslims against Pope John VIII.
The alliance was so profitable that the Pope
was unable to win back the support of
Amalfi either by threatening excommunica-
tion or by offering total customs exemption
in Rome and a subsidy of no less than
10,000 silver mancusi a year. Ironically,
the mancusi in all probability were Islamic
coins, and the papyrus used by the Pope
for his diplomatic campaign was made in
Egypt and bore at its top an Arab inscrip-
tion praising Allah. Should one suggest that
the capital of Christianity was too near the
Islamic border to be typical of Christian
attitudes, we might recall the friendship of
Charlemagne and Mohammed's Successor,
Harun al-Rashid. 3 It resulted not only in
the foundation of an inn for pilgrims in
Jerusalem, but also in the establishment of a
market across the street, where the pilgrims

2 The Aghlabids were a ninth century dynasty in
Africa which became virtually independent [Edi-
tor's note]

3 Harun al-Rashid (ca. 764-809) was the most
famous of the Abbasid caliphs and a patron of arts
and letters under whom Bagdad reached its height.
[Editor's note]

76

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

by paying two dinars a year could carry on
their business.

Indirect proofs of the purportedly cata-
strophic effects of the Arab expansion have
been sought for in a supposed aggravation
of the general symptoms of economic and
intellectual depression in Catholic Europe.
We cannot discuss these symptoms without
changing our theme to a general investiga-
tion of early mediaeval economy and cul-
ture. Personally, I do not believe that the
depression was more acute in the Carolin-
gian than in the Merovingian period. The
earlier centuries of the early middle ages
benefited from the fact that Roman roads
and towns, institutions and traditions had
not entirely disintegrated, and that dis-
heartened Roman personnel still lent a hand
to inexperienced barbarians. The later cen-
turies benefited from the fact that the
further shrinking of the legacy of antiquity
forced the new world to make its first
clumsy attempts at reorganizing roads,
towns, institutions and traditions with a
personnel of mixed blood and rudimental
training. Whether this pale dawn was better
or worse than the previous pale dusk is
anybody's guess: judgments on cultural
achievements depend largely on personal
taste, and exact economic comparisons
between two adjoining and similar periods
cannot be made without some statistical
base. But even if Carolingian inferiority
were ascertainable it could not be pinned
a -priori on the impact of Arab invasions
rather than on the lingering inability of the
West to reverse an old downward trend.

It would be still more rash to draw gen-
eral inferences from ascertained changes of
a limited scope. The fact that during the
Carolingian period the ports of Provence
and Languedoc lost trade to those of north-
eastern and southwestern Italy, or that
Syrian and Greek merchants in the West
yielded their prominence to Jews and
Scandinavians does not by itself prove a
breakdown of Mediterranean commerce any
more than the displacement of Seville and
Lisbon by Antwerp and Amsterdam in the
early modern age denotes a collapse of

Atlantic trade. The passing of economy
primacy from one people to another is a
normal trait of the historical process. Again,
the decrease and cessation of the imports of
Palestinian wine, Egyptian papyrus and (to
a lesser extent) some other Oriental com-
modities does not necessarily stern from
general difficulties in trade. Specific changes
in taste, fashions, traditions, and methods
of production may be responsible for a wane
in the demand or the offer of individual
wares. To all this I shall return very soon;
here a passing mention of the problem will
be sufficient.

We still have to consider the possibility
that trade between East and West came to
a virtual end not because of the Arab
invasions but owing to the gradual exhaus-
tion of the gold and silver stocks of Catholic
Europe. The problem has been studied by
some of the greatest historians of the last
generation Marc Bloch and Michael
Rostovtzeff among others but it is still
obscure: monetary phenomena always are
hard to interpret, and for the early middle
ages information is desperately scant. We
do know that the later Roman emperors
already expressed alarm at the double drain-
age of currency through private hoarding
and the export of coins or bullion to Persia,
India, and China in exchange for luxury
goods. To be sure, mercantilistic instincts
and traditional dislike for extravagant ex-
penditure and foreign manners may have
added emphasis to their words; moreover,
they found greedy hoarders and selfish mer-
chants good scapegoats to share the blame
for inflation, taxation and economic misery.
Still, there is archaeologic confirmation of
their claims hoards within the empire and
Roman coins scattered through Asia. The
Byzantine Empire made conservation of its
stocks of precious metals a cardinal point
of its economic policies. The stockpile had
ups and downs, but in the early middle
ages it never was depleted so much that
it was not possible to maintain a stable and
fairly abundant currency in gold, silver and
copper. The Islamic countries were blessed
with sensational discoveries of sold and

o

East and West in the Early Middle Ages

77

silver mines. Catholic Europe, however,
fell heir to the poorer half of the formerly
Roman territory, which had no rich mines
and no thriving trades. Hoarding was car-
ried out in abnormally high proportions.
Coinage declined in quality and quantity
until the only local currency consisted of
puny silver deniers struck in modest
amounts. Could this not be an indication
that Catholic Europe had practically used
up its precious metals and no longer had
the means to pay for imports from the East?

The answer is not as simple as one might
think at first. Probably Catholic Europe
would have been unable to carry out large
purchases in the Byzantine and Muslim
markets with the small amount of coinage
it struck and maintained in circulation, or
with the Byzantine and Muslim coins that
war or trade channeled to its coffers. But
there is no reason to assume that Catholic
Europe desired to purchase more goods than
it could easily afford. Remarkably, the lay
and ecclesiastic lords who were the best
potential customers of Eastern luxury goods
also were the greatest hoarders. Their un-
spent and cumbersome wealth lay frozen
in bars, rings, jewels, and other artistic
objects. From the tenth century on, when
the revival of trade and culture caused the
demand for Eastern goods to skyrocket,
those treasures were melted down; nothing
would have prevented their owners from
melting them sooner if they had needed
cash. Quite to the contrary, what evidence
we have conveys the impression that hoards
grew in size during the eighth and ninth
centuries.

There is no direct way to calculate the
balance of payments in the trade of Catholic
Europe with the Byzantine and Muslim
East, but all that we know about the vast
economic and cultural gulf which separated
these worlds and about the goods which
were prevalent in the exchanges between
them enables us to venture a guess. In all
probability early mediaeval Europe, with its
rude society of affluent lords and penniless
peasants, behaved towards the refined and
complex societies of Byzantium and Islam

like any other backward country that does
not crave for many outlandish manufactured
goods and has an excess of raw materials
available for export. Ordinarily in such cases
the balance of payments is favorable to
the backward country. The more advanced
nations have to offset their commercial
deficit by remitting gold and silver, unless
they are ready to tip the scales with the
sword and impose upon the "inferior" or
"infidel" race some sort of tributary or
colonial regime. The latter method was not
unknown in the early middle ages; Byzan-
tine fiscality and Arab raids often extorted
from one or another underdeveloped and
weak European country many goods for
which no adequate payment was offered.
But the Venetians and the Vikings, the
Franks and the Jews were too strong or too
crafty to yield to sheer force. They must
have been paid good cash.

Any guess is open to challenge. Let us
assume that our guess was wrong, and that
Catholic Europe for a few centuries or for
the whole duration of the early middle
ages exported cash to pay for the Oriental
commodities it wanted to import; would this
force us to postulate that its stock of
precious metals was eventually exhausted?
I do not believe it would. The quantities
involved were so small that the local pro-
duction of gold and silver was more than
enough to meet the current demand without
drawing from the reserve. A certain amount
of silver, it is true, had to be set aside for
the striking of deniers; gold, however, was
not used by Western mints except for
occasional emissions of ceremonial coins or
for imitations of Byzantine and Islamic
coins. The rest was available for hoarding,
adornment and foreign trade. The same
princes and prelates who handed out so
much gold to smiths in order to have goblets
and reliquaries could well deliver gold to
merchants in exchange for Oriental spices
and perfumes. Their purchases would have
sufficed to keep trade with the East going
a small trickle, perhaps, but a stirring,
incessant reminder to provincial and coun-
trified Europe that there were other worlds

78

ROBERT S. LOPEZ

with a quicker, broader and richer way of
life.

Eventually not economic stagnation, but
economic growth made the monetary stock
of Europe inadequate. In the tenth century
the laborious search for gold in the Italian,
French and German rivers was intensified,
and the discovery of rich silver mines near
Goslar 4 started a "silver rush" of consider-

4 Goslar is in central Germany, at the northern
edge of the Harz Mountains. [Editor's note]

able proportions. Yet we have good reasons
to believe that the exports of Catholic
Europe to the Eastern world were increas-
ing. We have to use the richer evidence of
the tenth century to supplement that of
earlier centuries on which so little is known,
but we ought to remember that a new era
was already in the making, and that early
mediaeval stagnation was about to yield to
the Commercial Revolution of the later
middle ages.

TECHNOLOGY AND INVENTION IN
THE MIDDLE AGES

LYNN WHITE, JR.

Educated at Stanford and Harvard, Lynn White, Jr., taught history
at Princeton and Stanford before becoming president of Mills College
in 1943. As a historian one of his areas of research has been the badly
neglected field of medieval technology; the article, excerpted below,
received wide attention. Dr. White was interested not so much in ques-
tioning the Pirenne Thesis as in suggesting that in agricultural improve-
ments there is a parallel explanation for the transference of European
Civilization from the Mediterranean to the North.

T.
E HISTORY of technology and inven-
ion, especially that of the earlier
periods, has been left strangely unculti-
vated. Our vast technical institutes continue
at an ever-accelerating pace to revolutionize
the world we live in; yet small effort is
being made to place our present technology
in the time-sequence, or to give to our
technicians that sense of their social respon-
sibility which can only come from an exact
understanding of their historical function
one might almost say, of their apostolic
succession. By permitting those who work
in shops and laboratories to forget the past,
we have impoverished the present and en-
dangered the future. In the United States
this neglect is the less excusable because we
Americans boast of being the most techni-
cally progressive people of an inventive age.
But when the historian of American tech-
nology tries to probe the medieval and
renaissance roots of his subject he runs into
difficulties: the materials available to him
are scanty and often questionable; for pro-
fessional mediaevalists have left unrnined
this vein in the centuries on which they
have staked their claim. . . .

Perhaps the chief reason why scholars
have been hesitant to explore the subject is
the difficulty of delimiting its boundaries:
technology knows neither chronological nor
geographic frontiers.

The student of the history of invention
soon discovers that he must smash the con-
ventional barriers between Greek and bar-
barian, Roman and German, oriental and
occidental. For mediaeval technology is
found to consist not simply of the technical
equipment inherited from the Roman-
Hellenistic world modified by the inventive
ingenuity of the western peoples, but also
of elements derived from three outside
sources: the northern barbarians, the By-
zantine and Moslem Near East, and the
Far East.

The importance of the first of these, the
barbarian influence, has been far too little
understood even by those who have dabbled
in the history of technology. Students of
the fine arts have only recently led the way
towards an appreciation of the essential
unity and originality of that vast northern
world of so-called "barbarians" which, in
ancient times, had its focal point on the

From Lynn White, Jr., "Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages," Speculum, XV (April 1940),
pp. 141, 143-144, 149-150, 151-156. By permission of Tne Medieval Academy o America, Cam-
bridge, Mass.

79

80

LYNN WHITE, JR.

plains of Russia and of Western Siberia,
but which extended from the Altai Moun-
tains to Ireland: we are beginning to learn
how profoundly it affected the aesthetic
expressions of the Middle Ages. But even
before the Germanic migrations, these bar-
barians had begun to influence Roman
technology, and in later centuries they con-
tributed many distinctive ingredients to
mediaeval life: trousers and the habit of
wearing furs, the easily-heated compact
house as contrasted with the Mediterranean
patio-house, cloisonne jewelry, feltmaking,
the ski, the use of soap for cleansing, and
of butter in place of olive oil, the making
of barrels and tubs, the cultivation of rye,
oats, spelt, and hops, perhaps the sport of
falconry and certain elements of the num-
ber-system. Above all, the great plains in-
vented the stirrup, which made the horse
etymologically responsible for chivalry, and,
perhaps even more important, the heavy
plow which, as we shall see, is the tech-
nological basis of the typical mediaeval
manor. . . .

The student of European technics, then,
is compelled to follow his subject far be-
yond the usual geographical limits of medi-
aeval research. Similarly he finds that for
his purposes the customary tripartite divi-
sion of history into ancient, mediaeval and
modern is completely arbitrary. In particu-
lar he finds no evidence of a break in the
continuity of technological development
following the decline of the Western Ro-
man Empire.

The Dark Ages doubtless deserve their
name : political disintegration, economic de-
pression, the debasement of religion and the
collapse of literature surely made the bar-
barian kingdoms in some ways unimagin-
ably dismal. Yet because many aspects of
civilization were in decay we should not
assume too quickly that everything was
back-sliding. Even an apparent coarsening
may indicate merely a shift of interest: in
modern painting we recognize that Van
Gogh's technical methods were not those
of David; so, when we contrast a Hellenis-
tic carved gem with a Merovingian enamel,

our judgment should be cautious. Few will
dispute that the Irish illumination and the
Scandinavian jewelry of the seventh and
eighth centuries stand among the supreme
arts of all time; yet they are far from classi-
cal canons of taste, being rooted in an an-

7 o

cient, and quite separate, tradition of
Northern art. So in the history of tech-
nology we must be discriminating. Chang-
ing tastes and conditions may lead to the
degeneration of one technique while the
technology of the age as a whole is advanc-
ing. The technology of torture, for exam-
ple, which achieved such hair-raising per-
fection during the Renaissance, is now
happily in eclipse: viewed historically, our
modem American "third degree" is barbaric
only in its simplicity.

Indeed, a dark age may stimulate rather
than hinder technology. Economic catastro-
phe in the United States during the past
decade has done nothing to halt invention
quite the contrary; and it is a common-
place that war encourages technological
advance. Confusion and depression, which
bring havoc in so many areas of life, may
have just the opposite effect on technics.
And the chances of this are particularly
good in a period of general migration, when
peoples of diverse backgrounds and in-
heritances are mixing.

There is, in fact, no proof that any im-
portant skills of the Graeco-Roman world
were lost during the Dark Ages even in
the unenlightened West, much less in the
flourishing Byzantine and Saracenic Orient.
To be sure, the diminished wealth and
power of the Germanic kings made engi-
neering on the old Roman scale infrequent;
yet the full technology of antiquity was
available when required: the 276-ton mon-
olith which crowns the tomb of Theodoric
the Ostrogoth was brought to Ravenna
from Istria; while more than two centuries
later Charlemagne transported not only
sizable columns but even a great equestrian
statue of Zeno from Ravenna across the
Alps to Aachen. Incidentally, we should
do well to remember that the northern
peoples from remote times were capable of

Technology and Invention in the Middle Aes

81

managing great weights, as witness Stone-
henge and the dolmens. . . .

Indeed, the technical skill of classical
times was not simply maintained: it was
considerably improved. Our view of history
has heen too top-lofty. We have been daz-
zled by aspects of civilization which are in
every age the property of an elite, and in
which the common man, with rare excep-
tions, has had little part. The so-called
"higher" realms of culture might decay,
government might fall into anarchy, and
trade be reduced to a trickle, but through
it all, in the fact of turmoil and hard times,
the peasant and artisan carried on, and
even improved their lot. In technology, at
least, the Dark Ages mark a steady and
uninterrupted advance over the Roman
Empire. Evidence is accumulating to show
that a serf in the turbulent and insecure
tenth century enjoyed a standard of living
considerably higher than that of a prole-
tarian in the reign of Augustus.

The basic occupation was, of course,
agriculture. We have passed through at
least two agricultural revolutions: that
which began with "Turnip" Townshend
and Jethro Tull in the early eighteenth
century, and another, equally important, in
the Dark Ages.

The problem of the development and
diffusion of the northern wheeled plow,
equipped with colter, horizontal share and
moldboard, is too thorny to be discussed
here. Experts seem generally agreed: (1)
that the new plow greatly increased pro-
duction by making possible the tillage of
rich, heavy, badly-drained river-bottom
soils; (2) that it saved labor by making
cross-plowing superfluous, and thus pro-
duced the typical northern strip-system of
land division, as distinct from the older
block-system dictated by the cross-plowing
necessary with the lighter Mediterranean
plow; (3) most important of all, that the
heavy plow needed such power that peas-
ants pooled their oxen and plowed together,
thus laying the basis for the mediaeval
cooperative agricultural community, the
manor. But whatever may be the date and

origin of the fully developed heavy plow,
its effects were supplemented and 'greatly
enhanced in the later eighth century by
the invention of the three-field system, an
improved rotation of crops and fallow
which greatly increased the efficiency of
agricultural labor. For example, by switch-
ing 600 acres from the two-field to the
three-field system, a community of peasants
could plant 100 acres more in crops each
year with 100 acres less of plowing. Since
fallow land was plowed twice to keep down
the weeds, the old plan required three acres
of plowing for every acre in crops, whereas
the new plan required only two acres of
plowing for every productive acre.

In a society overwhelmingly agrarian,
the result of such an innovation could be
nothing less than revolutionary. Pirenne is
only the most recent of many historians to
speculate as to why the reign of Charle-
magne witnessed the shift of the center of
European civilization, the change of the
focus of history, from the Mediterranean
to the plains of Northern Europe. The
findings of agricultural history, it seems,
have never been applied to this central
problem in the study of the growth of the
northern races. Since the spring sowing,
which was the chief novelty of the three-
field system, was unprofitable in the south
because of the scarcity of summer rains, the
three-field system did not spread below the
Alps and Loire, For obvious reasons of
climate the agricultural revolution of the
eighth century was confined to Northern
Europe. It would appear, therefore, that it
was this more efficient and productive use
of land and labor which gave to the north-
ern plains an economic advantage over the
Mediterranean shores, and which, from
Charlemagne's time onward, enabled the
Northern Europeans in short order to sur-
pass both in prosperity and in culture the
peoples of an older inheritance*

In ways less immediately significant the
Dark Ages likewise made ingenious im-
provements. One of the most important of
these was a contribution to practical me-
chanics. There are two basic forms of mo-

82

LYNN WHITE, JR.

tion: reciprocal and rotary. The normal
device for connecting these a device with-
out which our machine civilization is in-
conceivable is the crank. The crank is an
invention second in importance only to the
wheel itself; yet the crank was unknown to
the Greeks and the Romans. It appears,
even in rudimentary form, only after the
Invasions: first, perhaps, in hand-querns,
then on rotary grindstones. The later Mid-
dle Ages developed its application to all
sorts of machinery.

Clearly there are nuggets in this stream
for anyone to find. Perhaps the most suc-
cessful amateur student of early mediaeval
technology was the Commandant Lefebvre
des Noettes, who after his retirement from
active service in the French cavalry, de-
voted himself to his hobby, the history of
horses. He died in 1936, having made dis-
coveries which must greatly modify our
judgment of the Carolingian period. From
his investigations Lefebvre des Noettes con-
cluded that the use of animal pow r er in
antiquity was unbelievably inefficient. The
ancients did not use nailed shoes on their
animals, and broken hooves often rendered
beasts useless. Besides, they knew only the
yoke-system of harness. While this was ade-
quate for oxen, it was most unsatisfactory
for the more rapid horse. The yoke rested
on the withers of a team. From each end
of the yoke ran two flexible straps: one a
girth behind the forelegs, the other circling
the horse's neck. As soon as the horse be-
gan to pull, the flexible front strap pressed
on his windpipe, and the harder he pulled
the closer he came to strangulation. More-
over the ancient harness was mechanically
defective: the yoke was too high to permit
the horse to exert his full force in pulling
by flinging his body-weight into the task.
Finally, the ancients were unable to har-
ness one animal in front of another. Thus

all great weights had to be drawnn bv gangs
r 7 i > 5 e>

or slaves, since animal power was not tech-
nically available in sufficient quantities.

According to Lefebvre des Noettes this
condition remained unchanged until the
later ninth or early tenth century when,

almost simultaneously, three major inven-
tions appear: the modern horse-collar, the
tandem harness, and the horseshoe. The
modern harness, consisting of a rigid horse-
collar resting on the shoulders of the beast,
permitted him to breathe freely. This was
connected to the load by lateral traces
which enabled the horse to throw his whole
body into pulling. It has been shown ex-
perimentally that this new 7 apparatus so
greatly increased the effective animal power
that a team which can pull only about one
thousand pounds with the antique yoke
can pull three or four times that weight
when equipped with the new harness.
Equally important was the extension of the
traces so that tandem harnessing w r as possi-
ble, thus providing an indefinite amount
of animal power for the transport of great
weights. Finally, the introduction of the
nailed horseshoe improved traction and
greatly increased the endurance of the
newly available animal power. Taken to-
gether these three inventions suddenly gave
Europe a new supply of non-human power,
at no increase of expense or labor. They did
for the eleventh and twelfth centuries w 7 hat
the steam-engine did for the nineteenth.
Lefebvre des Noettes has therefore offered
an unexpected and plausible solution for
the most puzzling problem of the Middle
Ages: the sudden upswing of European
vitality after the year 1000.

However, Lefebvre des Noettes failed to
point out the relation between this access
of energy and the contemporary agricul-
tural revolution. He noted that the new
harness made the horse available for agri-
cultural labor: the first picture of a horse
so engaged is found in the Bayeux Tapes-
try. But while the horse is a rapid and
efficient power engine, it burns an expen-
sive f uel grain as compared with the
slow r er, but cheaper, hay-burning ox. Under
the two-field system the peasants' margin
of production was insufficient to support a
work-horse; under the three-field system the
horse gradually displaced the ox as the
normal plow and draft animal of the north-
ern plains. By the later Middle Ages there

Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages

83

is a clear correlation on the one hand be-
tween the horse and the three-field system
and on the other between the ox and the
two-field system. The contrast is essentially
one between the standards of living and of
labor-productivity of the northern and the
southern peasantry: the ox saves food; the
horse saves man-hours. The new agricul-
ture, therefore, enabled the north to exploit
the new power more effectively than the
Mediterranean regions could, and thereby
the northerners increased their prosperity
still further.

Naturally Lefebvre des Noettes made
mistakes: only when his work receives the
recognition it deserves will these be recti-
fied. His use of the monuments is not im-
peccable; his almost exclusive concern with
pictures led him to neglect the texts, par-
ticularly Pliny s assertion that at times Ital-
ian peasants (presumably in the Po valley)
plowed with several yokes of oxen; and he
overlooks the complex question of the eight-
ox plow-team as a basis for land division in
pre-Carolingian times. Moreover an ety-
mologist has recently shown that the word
for "horse-collar" in the Teutonic and
Slavic tongues (English: hames) is derived
from Central-Asiatic sources, implying a
diffusion of the modern harness westward
from the nomadic steppe-culture. Doubt-
less criticism will eventually show that
Lefebvre des Noettes' three inventions
developed rather more slowly than he
thought. But that they grew and spread
during the Dark Ages, and that they pro-
foundly affected European society, seems
already proved, . . .

The cumulative effect of the newly avail-
able animal, water, and wind power upon
the culture of Europe has not been care-
fully studied. But from the twelfth and
even from the eleventh, century there was

a rapid replacement of human by non-
human energy wherever great quantities of
power were needed or where the required
motion was so simple and monotonous that
a man could be replaced by a mechanism.
The chief glory of the later Middle Ages
was not its cathedrals or its epics or its
scholasticism: it was the building for the
first time in history of a complex civilization
which rested not on the backs of sweating
slaves or coolies but primarily on non-
human power.

The study of mediaeval technology is
therefore far more than an aspect of eco-
nomic history: it reveals a chapter in the
conquest of freedom. More than that, it is
a part of the history of religion. The hu-
manitarian technology which our modern
world has inherited from the Middle Ages
was not rooted in economic necessity; for
this "necessity" is inherent in ever} 7 society,
yet has found inventive expression only in
the Occident, nurtured in the activist or
voluntarist tradition of Western theology.
It is ideas which make necessity conscious.
The labor-saving power-machines of the
later Middle Ages were produced by the
implicit theological assumption of the infi-
nite worth of even the most degraded hu-
man personality, by an instinctive repug-
nance towards subjecting any man to a
monotonous drudgery which seems less
than human in that it requires the exercise
neither of intelligence nor of choice. It has
often been remarked that the Latin Middle
Ages first discovered the dignity and spir-
itual value of labor that to labor is to
pray. But the Middle Ages went further:
they gradually and very slowly began to
explore the practical implications of an es-
sentially Christian paradox: that just as the
Heavenly Jerusalem contains no temple, so
the goal of labor is to end labor.

PIRENNE AND MUHAMMAD

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

Editorial note attached to the article in Speculum: "The author of
this article was killed when the plane in which he was travelling on govern-
ment service crashed over Ethiopia on 22 March 1947. An able scholar,
expert in the languages and history of the Near East, Dr. Dennett had
served as instructor in history at Harvard previous to his appointment
in 1942 as Cultural Relations Attache at the American Legation in Beirut,
a post he held until his untimely death at the age of thirty-seven."

HENRI PIRENNE summarized the re-
sults of a distinguished career in
his last work, Mohammed and Charle-
magne (New York, 1939), published post-
humously by his executors and unfortu-
nately without revision by author. In this
book, which restates without appreciable
alteration, despite wide and sometimes bit-
ter controversy, the conclusions reached in
a series of well-known articles, the author
sets forth the following thesis:

Because the Germanic invaders had
neither the desire, nor the unity of purpose,
to destroy the Roman Empire, "Romania"
existed as both concept and fact for more
than two centuries after 476. The Emperor
had abdicated nothing of his universal sov-
ereignty and the barbarian rulers of the
West acknowledged his primacy. Thus "the
Empire subsisted, in law, as a sort of mys-
tical presence; in fact and this is much
more important it was 'Romania' that
survived." Inasmuch as the invaders repre-
sented a bare five per cent of the popula-
tion, they were Romanized. The language
of Gaul was Latin, the system of govern-
ment and administration remained un-
changed, Roman law still survived, the
Empire was the only world power and its
foreign policy embraced all Europe, with

the result that the only positive element in
history was the influence of the Empire
which "continued to be Roman, just as the
United States of North America, despite
immigration, have remained Anglo Saxon."

The best proof of the persistence of Ro-
mania is to be found in the flourishing
commerce of Gaul to which Syrian traders
on the free Mediterranean brought the
spices of the Orient, the wines of Gaza, the
papyrus of Egypt, and the oil of North
Africa. This commerce played a crucial role
in the economic, social, and political life of
Gaul, which was chiefly supported by its
influence. Nor was it small commerce,
since "I think we may say that navigation
was at least as active as under the Empire."
Because of it, the monetary system of the
barbarians was that of Rome, and the cur-
rency was gold in contrast to the system of
silver monometallism which was that of the
Middle Ages.

The Muslim expansion in the seventh
century placed two hostile civilizations on
the Mediterranean, and "the sea which had
hitherto been the centre of Christianity be-
came its frontier. The Mediterranean unity
was shattered.". . . This was the most essen-
tial event of European history that had
occurred since the Punic Wars. It was the

From Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., "Pirenne and Muhammad," Speculum, XXHI (April, 1948), pp. 165-
190. By permission of The Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Mass. [Dr. Dennett's exten-
sive documentation, save for a few references for quotations, has been omitted.l

84

Pirenne and Muhammad

85

end of the classic tradition. It was the be-
ginning of the Middle Ages." The sea was
closed to Gaul about the year 650, since the
first raid on Sicily came two years later.
As a result, the last text mentioning oils
and spices is dated 716 and may be a hasty
recopy of a charter of 673-675. There is not
a single mention of spices in any document
of the Carolingian period. The wines of
Gaza and the papyrus of Egypt disappeared,
silk was entirely unknown, and North Afri-
can oil was cut off, with the result that
churches turned from lamps to candles.
The coinage was debased and gold yielded
to silver. The Merovingian merchant, de-
fined as a negotiator who "lent money at
interest, was buried in a sarcophagus, and
gave of his goods to the churches and the
poor," ceased to exist.

Inasmuch as Pirenne has based his en-
tire thesis on the influence of commerce,
he is compelled to give a somewhat novel
explanation of the political disintegration
of Merovingian Gaul under the rois
faineants. He argues that the commercial
decline due to the Arabs began about the
year 650, that this epoch corresponds almost
exactly with the progress of anarchy in
Gaul, that the only source of the king's
power was money, money which was de-
rived in largest measure from the indirect
taxes (tonlieu) on commerce, that the royal
power, weakened by loss of revenue, had
to compromise with the church and the
nobility, that immunities were therefore not
the cause of the king's weakness but in
reality were a consequence of it, and that
thus the progress of Islam destroyed the
Merovingians.

Furthermore, the shattering of Mediter-
ranean unity restricted the authority of the
Pope to Western Europe, and the conquest
of Spain and Africa by the Arabs left the
king of the Franks the master of the Chris-
tian Occident. This king was the only tem-
poral authority to whom the Pope could
turn, and therefore "it is strictly correct to
say that without Mohammed, Charlemagne
would have been inconceivable."

In summation, "If we consider that in

the Carolingian epoch the minting of gold
had ceased, that lending money at interest
was prohibited, that there was 'no longer a
class of professional merchants, that Orien-
tal products (papyrus, spices, silk) were no
longer imported, that the circulation of
money was reduced to the minimum, that
laymen could no longer read and write,
that the taxes were no longer organized,
and that the towns were merely fortresses,
we can say without hesitation that we are
confronted with a civilization which had
retrogressed to the purely agricultural stage;
which no longer needed commerce, credit,
and regular exchange for the maintenance
of the social fabric." The Muslim conquest
had transformed the economic world from
the money economy of the Merovingians
to the natural economy of the Middle Ages.
A critic of Pirenne's theses must begin by
asking the following six questions:

1. Was it the policy and the practice of
the Arabs to prohibit commerce either at
its source or on the normal trade routes of
the Mediterranean? Can we indicate an
approximate date, accurate within twenty-
five years, for the ending of commerce
between the Christian Occident and the
Orient"?

2. Is it possible to find another explana-
tion for the disappearance of the wines of
Gaza, the papyrus of Egypt, and the spices
of the Orient?

3. Is it true that Gaul had no apprecia-
ble foreign commerce after the beginning
of the Carolingian period?

4. Is it true that the civilization of Mer-
ovingian Gaul, considered in its broadest
social and political aspects, was determined
by trade? Is it possible that internal factors
conversely may have been of importance in
determining the prosperity of industry and
trade? How extensive was Mediterranean
commerce before 650?

5. Was "Romania" in fact a true cul-
tural unity of ideas, law, language, foreign
policy, common interest"?

6. What is the real significance and true
cause of the transition from a gold to a
silver coinage?

86

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

We must affirm that neither in the
Koran, nor in the sayings of the Prophet,
nor in the acts of the first caliphs, nor in the
opinions of Muslim jurists is there any pro-
hibition against trading with the Christians
or unbelievers. Before Muhammad, the
Arabs of the desert lived by their flocks and
those of the town by their commerce. To
these two sources of livelihood the conquest
added the income of empire and the yield
of agriculture, but the mercantile career
remained the goal of many, as the caravan
still crossed the desert and the trading vessel
skirted the coast line of the Red Sea, the
Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean.
Pirenne had asserted that "it is a proven
fact that the Musulman traders did not
instal themselves beyond the frontiers of
Islam. If they did trade, they did so among
themselves." This statement is a serious
misrepresentation of fact. Arab merchants
had established trading colonies which
were centers not only for the exchange of
goods but the propagation of the faith in
India, Ceylon, the East Indies, and even
China, by the close of the eighth century,
and if one wishes to know why they did not
establish similar centers in Gaul, let him
ask the question would Charlemagne
have permitted a mosque in Marseilles?

In this respect the Muslims themselves
were more tolerant and placed few obsta-
cles in the path of Christian traders who
came to their territory. Within the lands
that had formerly submitted to the Em-
peror, the Christians were now subjects of
the Muslim state, yet they were protected
by law, and in return for the pavment of
their taxes and the discharge of obligations
stipulated in the original terms of capitula-
tion, they were specifically and formally
guaranteed the freedom of Christian wor-
ship, the jurisdiction of Christian bishops
in cases not involving Muslims, and the
pursuit of trades and professions. The civil
service and the language of administration
remained Greek, and Arabic did not uni-
versally displace Greek in the government
bureaus until the end of the first century

following the conquest. In Egypt, at least,
the change of rule brought an improvement
in the social and economic life of the popu-
lation, and the church of Alexandria en-
joyed a liberty of faith which it had hitherto
not experienced.

In consideration of the fact that it has
formerly been believed that internal causes
produced a decline of industry and trade
in Gaul, the burden of proof in Pirenne' s
thesis must show that the Arab raids were
of a frequency and intensity in themselves
to destroy the commerce of the western
Mediterranean. It is not a just argument
merely to assert that these raids were dis-
astrous because commerce in Gaul declined.
We have already noticed that in order to
connect the decline of the Merovingian
monarchy with the activity of the Arabs,
Pirenne has been obliged to assign the date
650 as that point when Arab naval activity
became formidable. What are the facts?

There may have been a raid on Sicily in
652. We are told that it was led by Muawia
ibn Hudaij and resulted in taking much
booty 7 from unfortified places, but was
called off when plague threatened the in-
vaders. As Amari shows, there is a great
deal of confusion among the Muslim
authorities both as to the date (for an
alternative, 664 A.D. is given), as to the
leader (since it is highly probable that not
Muawia but his lieutenant Abdallah ibn
Qais commanded the actual expedition),
and as to the port of embarkation (either
Tripoli in Syria or Barka in North Africa).
Becker does not accept the date 652 and
argues that the first raid took place only in
664, but it is possible that there were two
different expeditions, one in 652, the sec-
ond in 664. 1

Three years after the presumed earliest
assault on Sicily, the Emperor Cons tans II,
in 655, received a serious blow to his pres-
tige when the Byzantine fleet was beaten
in the Aegean by the new Muslim navy in

1 Amari is an Italian historian and C. H. Becker
was Professor of Oriental History in the Colonial
Institute o Hamburg. Dennett's references to
their writings have been omitted. [Editor's note]

Pirenne and Muhammad

87

the first real test of sea power. The Arabs
did not follow up their victory, but its con-
sequence demonstrated to the Emperor the
need for a vigorous naval policy, for, al-
though Constantinople and the straits
might be held against siege, the strategi-
cally vulnerable point of the Empire was
not in the Aegean, but in the West, since
(as events were to show two centuries later)
once the enemy had a base in Sicily, South
Italy would then be within easy grasp, and
if South Italy were securely held, only im-
mense naval exertions could protect Greece
proper, and if Greece fell under Muslim
control, a combined blockade by land and
sea of the imperial city would be possible.
Bury 2 holds that this consideration, the
guarding of the rear against attack from the
West, was a strong motive in inducing
Constans to concentrate naval power in the
West and to go himself to Sicily in 662,
where he reigned for six years until his
assassination in 668.

The Arabs took advantage of the chaos
following the assassination to raid the coasts
of Sicily the next year, but when order
was reestablished Sicily remained at peace
again for thirty-five years.

Meanwhile the Greek fleet itself was far
from inactive, raiding Egypt in 673 and, in
a successful attack on Barka in 689, putting
the Arabs to rout in which the governor of
North Africa, Zuheir ibn Qais, perished.
Early attempts to take Carthage were frus-
trated because the Greeks had control of
the seas, and the city fell in 698 only be-
cause the Arabs had constructed a fleet for
the purpose and the Greek naval force was
in the Aegean. Following Bury's argument,
if the Emperor had established a permanent
naval base at Carthage, the city would
never have been taken.

Therefore, in view of the facts that the
Arabs made only two, (possibly three)
raids on Sicily before 700, that these raids
resulted in a vigorous naval policy of the
Greeks in the West, that it was not until

2 J. B. Bury (d. 1927) was a distinguished British
historian, an authority on the later Roman Empire
and the Byzantine era, [Editor's note]

698 that the Arabs had a fleet strong
enough to operate at Carthage, and that
they had not yet seized the straits of Gibral-
tar or occupied Spain, we are bound to
acknowledge the absence of any evidence
to indicate the closing of the Mediterra-
nean thereby weakening the basis of royal
power in Gaul before 700. Pirenne himself
acknowledges this fact by admitting that
spices and papyrus could be procured by the
monks of Corbie in 716. Indeed, anyone
who reads Pirenne closely will notice 'that
he is careless with chronology and mentions
results which were produced by the Arab
conquest as beginning at various points
within a period of 150 years.

What progress was made in the eighth
century? In 700 the Arabs took Pantellaria
and constructed a naval base in Tunis with
the intention of undertaking the conquest
of Sicily, but after some preliminary raids
in 703-705, for the purpose of reconnoiter-
ing, the new governor, Musa ibn Nusair,
turned westwards and launched a campaign
which was to culminate in the Spanish con-
quest, begun in 711.

Papyri dated 710 to 718 give us consider-
able information about ship building in the
Nile delta, where vessels were constructed
for service not only in Egypt but in the
West and in Syria as well, and mention
raids of which, unfortunately, we know
neither the destination nor the results. We
do not know of any raids against Sicily
until 720. Thereafter there were attacks in
727, 728, 730, 732, and 734. It must be
emphasized that these were not attempts at
conquest nor were they successful against
fortified ports. A raid in 740 was recalled
when civil war, due to tribal and religious
factions, broke out throughout the entire
territory under Muslim sway, a war which
ended all hopes of an Arab offensive and
resulted in the destruction of the Umayyad
Caliphate at Damascus. In the meantime
the Greek fleet led attacks on Egypt in 720
and 739, won a naval victory in 736, and
annihilated the principal Arab force off
Cyprus in 747. Only three Arab ships
escaped this disaster.

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

After 751 the new Arab capital was 700
miles from the sea, and the Abbasids ne-
glected the navy. Spain became independ-
ent under a rival Umayyad, and the politi-
cal control of North Africa weakened sensi-
bly. Henceforth naval operations could be
undertaken only by virtually independent
governors who lacked the organization and
collective resources of the Caliphate. A last
abortive assault on Sicily in 752-753 was
frustrated by the Greek fleet. A fifty years
peace followed, perpetuated in 805 in a
treaty signed by Ibrahim ibn Aghlab for a
term of ten years and renewed by his son
for a similar period in 813. The Arab con-
quest of Sicily did not commence until
827 and then only on invitation of a rebel
Greek who had assassinated the governor.

o

Sardinia was first raided in 710 and Cor-
sica in 713. The Arab control of the latter
ended with its reconquest by Charlemagne
in 774, and the Arab occupation of Sardinia
was never complete. We have no evidence
that these islands were used as bases for
raids on commerce.

Pirenne grants that after 717 there was
no question of Arab superiority in the
Aegean but argues that before that time
Arab naval activity had serious conse-
quences. We have already noted that dur-
ing the seventh century the Greeks for
much of the time were sure enough of their
Aegean position to conduct raids against
Egypt and North Africa and to operate
in the West. Let us review briefly the
situation.

In 655, an Arab fleet routed the Greeks
led by Constans II. This was the first and
only important naval defeat. The following
year the caliph Uthman was murdered, and
in the ensuing struggle for power between
Ali and Muawia, the latter, to secure his
rear and the Syrian coasts against a Greek
assault, entered into an arrangement in 659
with the Emperor by which he agreed to
pay tribute. In 666, according to The-
ophanes, 3 the Mardaites, an unconquered

3 Theophanes, 758817, a Byzantine chronicler.
[Editor's note]

people inhabiting the Amanus mountains
in Northwest Syria, broke out in a series of
attacks which secured for them all the stra-
tegic points from northern Syria to Pales-
tine. It is presumed that Muawia, after
being recognized as caliph, had ceased to
pay tribute, but this new situation made it
impossible to defend the Syrian ports
should the Greek fleet determine to attack,
and again the caliph, to secure his position,
resumed the payment of tribute.

During the years 674-680 men witnessed
the first "siege" of Constantinople. The
Arab fleet established a winter base at Cyzi-
cus in the Propontis and raided the Aegean
in the summer. We have no evidence that
their operations severed communications
between Constantinople and the West,
which could be maintained by land any-
way, and trade with the East was still pos-
sible via the Black Sea port of Trebizond.

Armenia during the Sassanid rule of
Persia was obligatory neutral territory for
the exchange of goods between East and
West, inasmuch as a national of the one
country was prohibited from setting foot on
the territory of the other. Trebizond on the
Black Sea was the port of entry, and Dwin,
among other towns, was a principal mart
of the interior. After the Muslim conquest,
Armenia, the friend of the Greeks and the
vassal of the Arabs, continued to remain a
center for the exchange of goods.

In 685, Abdul Malik, faced with a civil
war in Iraq, resumed payment of the trib-
ute of Muawia to protect his western flank,
and the agreement was renewed for a five
year period in 688 with the condition,
among others, that the tribute from the
island of Cyprus, which had been recov-
ered by the Greeks, should be equally di-
vided between the Greeks and the Arabs.
The truce was violated in 691-692 by the
Emperor when he declined to accept the
new Arab coinage and violated the Cyprus
convention. The last great assault on Con-
stantinople was the siege of 716-718.
Greek fire terrified the enemy, and the fail-
ure of the Arab fleet to provision the be-
siegers resulted in catastrophe. Only five

Pirenne and Muhammad

89

Muslim vessels escaped destruction and but
a remnant of the army reached Syria.

When we consider that the three at-
tempts on Constantinople all failed, that
only during the years 774-780 did a Mus-
lim fleet dominate the Aegean, that the
Greeks had recovered Cyprus, and that for
long periods the two most powerful caliphs,
Muawia and Abdul Malik, paid tribute to
the Greeks to preserve the Syrian ports
from attack, we are not justified in saying
that Arab naval supremacy broke up the
Greek lines of communication in the
Aegean during the seventh century.

Finally, let us consider the possibility
that Gaul was cut off from the East by
military occupation.

The Arabs crossed the Pyrenees in 720,
occupied Narbonne, and controlled the ex-
treme southern part of the country border-
ing on the Mediterranean Septimania. In
726 they occupied Carcassonne. The next
great advance, coming in 732, was turned
back by Charles Martel in the celebrated
battle of Tours. In 736 they reached the
Rhone for the first time at Aries and Avig-
non but were hurled back the next year by
Charles. We have already mentioned the
period of chaos after 740 which shelved all
plans of aggression; when domestic order
was restored, a new power existed in Gaul;
Pippin recaptured Narbonne in 759.
Pirenne himself says, "This victory marks,
if not the end of the expeditions against
Provence, at least the end of the Musulman
expansion in the West of Europe/' Charle-
magne, as is well known, carried the war
with indifferent success across the Pyre-
nees, but the Arabs did not again renew
their assaults until after his death. In 848
they raided Marseilles for the first time,
and later, spreading out from the base at
Fraxinetum, pushed into Switzerland,
where in 950 they held Grenoble and the
St Bernard Pass. The consequences of this
activity, however, fall long after the period
under discussion and need not be consid-
ered here.

To summarize: It is not correct to as-
sume, as Pirenne does, that a policy of

economic blockade played as principal a
role in the warfare of antiquity and the
Middle Ages as it does today, unless there
is a positive testimony to that effect, as for
example, the instance when the Persians
cut the Greeks off from the supply of
Eastern silk. With the exception of two
brief intervals, the Byzantine fleet was
master of the Aegean and the eastern Medi-
terranean not only in the seventh century
but in the following centuries. This same
fleet defended the West so well that only
two raids are known to have been attempted
against Sicily before 700. After the con-
quest of Spain had been accomplished, the
Arabs embarked in 720 on an ambitious
policy which took them for one brief year
to the Rhone, and exactly coinciding in
time with these military attacks came a
series of raids on Sicily; but by 740 dismal
failure was the reward everywhere, and
throughout the last fifty years of the cen-
tury the Arabs were either at peace or on
the defensive.

We cannot admit that this evidence per-
mits one to say, "Thus, it may be asserted
that navigation with the Orient ceased
about 650 as regards the regions situated
eastward of Sicily, while in the second half
of the 7th century it came to an end in the
whole of the Western Mediterranean. By
the beginning of the 8th century it had
completely disappeared."

The synchronization of land and sea at-
tacks, between 720 and 740, was repeated
a hundred years later, for, as Sicily was
being reduced, the invaders again crossed
the Pyrenees. There is little probability that
such synchronization was deliberate, but on
this second occasion it was terribly effective.
Then, if ever, Pirenne's thesis ought to
apply; for once the enemy held the south-
ern coast of France and Sicily in full con-
quest, as well as Southern Italy and the
port of Bari, thus constituting a threat to
any navigation in the Adriatic, one would
imagine that all commerce must have
ceased. The remarkable fact is that this is
the very period when we begin to have
comparatively full records of the commerce

90

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JH.

between the Arabs on one side, and Naples,
Amalfi, Sorrento, Gaeta, and the rising state
of Venice on the other side. This com-
merce prospered despite all efforts of Pope
and Emperor to suppress it. Jules Gay, the
eminent authority on the history of South-
ern Italy in this epoch, has truly observed:
"In these last years of the ninth century
when the Arab domination furnished the
conquest of the Island [Sicily], the hegem-
ony of Islam in the Mediterranean already
had found its limit in the restoration of
Byzantine power in the south of Italy
on the shores of the Ionian Sea at the
entrance of the Adriatic. But let us not
forget that a conquest, quite recent, of the
greater part of Sicily had been necessary
to establish this hegemony. Sicily, remain-
ing entirely Byzantine until 830, succeeded
in maintaining in a large measure its former
relations between the two parts of the
Mediterranean world. To suppose that the
conquest of Syria and of Egypt between
630 and 640 had been responsible for the
severing of the ancient Mediterranean
unity, the closing of the sea, the isolating
of the Orient from the Occident, as Pirenne
seems to believe, is to exaggerate singularly
the consequence and the extent of the first
Arab victories .... The final overthrow
was not the work of a single generation; it
took place more slowly than one w^ould
imagine. Carthage remained Byzantine till
698 and a century yet had to pass for the
Arab navy to affirm its preponderance in
the Western basin of this sea."

Did the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640-
642 end the exportation of papyrus? The
evidence is to the contrary. It was not until
677 that the royal chancery of Gaul adopted
parchment and it would be difficult to
imagine that the Prankish government had
a supply on hand to last for thirty-seven
years. Actually, papyrus was employed in
Gaul until a much later epoch, since the
monks of Corbie obtained fifty rolls in 716,
but the last specimen, dated 787, discovered
in the country, had been written in Italy.

Papyrus was traditionally employed by the
papacy. Still preserved on papyrus are
numerous papal documents, together with
a letter of Constantin V to Pippin and a
breviary of Archbishop Peter VI (927-
971) describing the possessions of the
Church of Ravenna. That papyrus was the
customary material used by the popes seems
to be indicated by numerous references,
e.g., the glossator of the panegyrist of Ber-
engar comments on the word papyrus
"secundum Romanum morem elicit, qui in
papiro scribere solent."

In light of the evidence, there can be no
other conclusion than that "the conquest of
Egypt by the Arabs brought no immediate
change. The manufacturing of papyrus
continued." Relying on a statement of Ibn
Haukal who referred to the cultivation of
pappus in Sicily in 977, some have held
that in the tenth and eleventh centuries,
the papal chancery obtained its supplies in
Sicily and not in Egypt. In this connection
it is worth noting that the process of mak-
ing rag paper was introduced from China
into the Eastern Caliphate shortly after
750, and we hear of a paper factory in
Bagdad in 794. About this time there was
a decline in Egyptian production of papy-
rus, and political disturbances in the coun-
try so interfered with a supply which paper
had not yet made dispensable, that the
caliph was forced to establish his own papy-
rus factory at Samarra in 836. T. W. Allen
suggests that inasmuch as the earliest
known Greek minuscule occurs in the
Uspensky Gospels of 835, one may accept
as a hypothesis that a known temporary
shortage of papyrus may have induced the
world of the Isaurian monarchy to give up
the use of papyrus, to write on vellum only,
in book form, on both sides, in a small hand
permitting the most to be made of the
space. Papyrus continued to be produced
until the competition of paper finally de-
stroyed the industry in the middle of the
eleventh century, and the fact that the last
Western document to employ it, a bull of
Victor II, is dated 1057 and coincides with
the end of production in Egypt, leads us to

Pirenne and Muhammad

91

believe that it was on Egypt, and not on
Sicily, that the papacy depended.

Parchment, of course, was not unknown
in Merovingian Gaul. Gregory of Tours
mentions it, as Pirenne points out. It was
regularly employed in preference to papy-
rus in Germany from the earliest times.

Since the Arab conquest of Egypt did
not cut off the supply of papyrus at its
source, because this material was still found
in Gaul a century later and was regularly
employed by the papacy until the eleventh
century, it is difficult to say that its dis-
appearance in Gaul is a conclusive proof
that the Arabs had cut the trade routes. In
the absence of all direct evidence one way
or another, it would appear that as a pos-
sible hypothesis one might conclude that
because parchment could be locally pro-
duced, because it was preferable as a writ-
ing material, and because, owing to a de-
preciated coinage, it may not have been
more expensive than papyrus, the people
of Gaul preferred to employ it.

The wines of Gaza undoubtedly were
no longer exported, or even produced on a
large scale, since it is a not unreasonable
assumption that the Arabs, following the
well known Koranic injunction against
wine, discouraged its manufacture. Some
vineyards certainly remained, for the Chris-
tian churches of Palestine and Syria still
used wine in celebrating the mass, and cer-
tain of the later Umayyad Caliphs were
notorious drunkards. But inasmuch as
papyrus and (as we shall presently show)
spices were still exported, the argumentum
ad vinum cannot be seriously advanced.

m

Is it true that with the Carolingians the
former commerce of Gaul came to an end
and the importation of Eastern luxuries
ceased?

Everyone agrees even Pirenne that
Gaul was surrounded by countries actively
engaged in commerce. In Italy, for exam-
ple, Venetian traders were selling velvet,
silk, and Tyrian purple in Pavia by 780.
Early in the ninth century they had trad-

ing connections with Alexandria, since the
Doge issued an edict in conjunction with
Leo V (813-820) forbidding this trade -
an edict which had little effect in view of
the fact that Venetian merchants translated
the body of St Mark in 827. Venice ex-
ported armor, timber for shipbuilding, and
slaves the latter despite the interdicts of
Charlemagne and Popes Zacharias and
Adrian I and imported all the usual Eastern
products: spices, papyrus, and silks, large
quantities of which were purchased by the
Papacy.

Confronted with the alternative of de-
fending Christendom or cooperating with
the Saracens in return for trading rights,
Naples, Amalfi, Salerno, and Gaeta chose
the latter course.

North of Gaul, the Scandinavian coun-
tries and the region about the Baltic main-
tained an active intercourse with Persia via
the water routes of Russia. The Arabs pur-
chased furs (sable, ermine, martin, fox, and
beaver), honey, wax, birch bark (for me-
dicinal purposes), hazel nuts, fish glue,
leather, amber, slaves, cattle, Norwegian
falcons, and isinglas (made from sturgeons'
bladders), and they sold jewelry, felt, metal
mirrors, luxury goods, and even harpoons
for the whale fisheries, besides exporting
large quantities of silver coin to balance an
unfavorable trade. The evidence for the
really great prosperity of this commerce is
to be found in the enormous coin hoards,
the contents of tombs excavated in Scandi-
navia, the accounts of Arab geographers,
and the incidental references in the writ-
ings and lives of men like Adam of Bremen
and St Ansgar. 4 Pirenne testifies to the
importance of commerce in this period for
the Netherlands.

We now come to the crucial point. If
Gaul was surrounded by neighbors actively
engaged in commerce, did not some of their
activity embrace Gaul as well? Pirenne de-

4 Adam of Bremen (llth century) wrote The
Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg-Bremen, a
valuable source for North German history. St.
Ansgar (9th century) was the first Christian
missionary to the Swedes; his life was written by
Rimbert, a contempoiaiy. [Editor's note]

92

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

nies this and asserts that no mention of
spices is to be found after 716 in Gaul and
that no negotiator of the Merovingian type
a man who lent money at interest, was
buried in a sarcophagus, and bequeathed
property to the poor and the church
existed.

Now spices could be obtained at the time
of Charlemagne, but at a high price, accord-
ing to a statement of Alcuin, "Indica pig-
mentorum genera magno emenda pretio."
Augsburg, from the beginning of the tenth
century, imported oriental products via
Venice. In 908 we read of a gift of Tyrian
purple by the bishop of Augsburg to the
monastery of St Gall. . . .

Einhard, in his account of the translation
of the blessed martyrs, Marcellinus and
Peter, mentions that the holy relics on
arrival were placed on neiv cushions of silk
and that the shrine was draped with fine
linen and silk. Abbo, in his epic of the
siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-
886, scorned those whose manners were
softened by Eastern luxuries, rich attire,
Tyrian purple, gems, and Antioch leather.
Similar references are to be found in the
work of the celebrated monk of St Gall. 5
Are we certain that this credulous retailer
of myth completely falsified the local color
as well? A far more interesting example is
a long list of spices to be found appended
to a manuscript of the statutes of Abbot
Adalhard. These statutes are certainly dated
in 822, but the manuscript is a copy of 986,
so scholars have assumed the possibility that
the list of spices may have been inserted at
any period between 822 and 986. If this
were true, Pirenne's case would certainly
be shaken and he has not hesitated to deny
the authenticity of the document, which he
places in the Merovingian period. But he
can produce not a single argument to sup-
port his view except the usual one the
document could not date from 822 or after
because the Arabs had cut the trade routes

5 These were the Annals of St. Gaul, written in
the famous monastery in Switzerland.

of the Mediterranean. Such a reason is
inadmissible.

That Carolingian Gaul traded with her
neighbors we may gather from a capitula-
tion issued by Charlemagne in 805 regu-
lating commerce with the East in which
specific towns were named where mer-
chants might go. Louis the Pious confirmed
the bishop of Marseilles as collector of tariff
at the port. An edict of Charles III in 887
mentions merchants at Passau on the Dan-
ube who were exempt from customs duties.
A pact of Lothar in 840 regulated trade
with Venice.

Charles the Bald in a charter of im-
munity given to St Denis in S'84 exempted
from all exactions boats belonging to the
monks engaged in trade or to their com-
mercial agents, . . .

Sabbe has discovered an example of at
least one negotiator who died in Bonn in
845 and disposed of a large estate a man
who certainly would seem to be included in
Pirenne's definition of a Merovingian mer-
chant. We have a continuous record of
Mainz as a trading center from the ninth
to the eleventh century: Einhard mentions
grain merchants who were accustomed
(solebant) to make purchases in Germany.
The Annales Fuldenses, for the famine year
of 850, mention the price of grain there.
Frisian merchants founded a colony in the
city in 866. Otto I sent a wealthy merchant
of Mainz as ambassador to Constantinople
in 979. An Arab geographer of the next
century describing the city says, "It is
strange, too, that one finds there herbs
which are produced only in the farthest
Orient: pepper, ginger, cloves, etc." Sabbe
has collected much evidence, from which
he concludes that in the ninth and tenth
centuries there were merchants, men of
fortune, making long voyages, transporting
cargoes in ships they owned personally and
speculating on the rise of prices. , . .

Any notion that Gaul was separated from
commercial contacts with the East in the
ninth and tenth centuries can be contra-
dicted by irrefutable evidence.

Pirenne and Muhammad

93

rv

Is it true that the culture and stability o
Merovingian Gaul was largely determined
by its commerce? The answer to this ques-
tion is to be found in a brief survey of the
economic history of the country. From the
Roman conquest until the end of the sec-
ond century of our era, Gaul enjoyed an
immense prosperity based on natural prod-
ucts. Wheat and barley were produced in
exportable quantities. Flax and wool were
woven into textiles famous throughout the
Mediterranean world. Cicero tells us (De
Republica, in, 9, 16) that Rome, to safe-
guard Italian interests from competition,
forbade the production of wine and olives,
but the prohibition was ineffective as vine-
yards and olive orchards multiplied. The
wine of Vienne was especially prized in
Rome and in the middle of the second cen-
tury Gaul exported both oil and olives.
Forests yielded timber which was sawed
into planking or exported to feed the fires
of the baths of the imperial city. In Bel-
gium horses were bred for the Roman cav-
alry. Ham, game birds, and the oysters of
Medoc were prized by Roman gourmets.

Mines yielded copper, lead, and iron,
and quarries in the Pyrenees, marble. Espe-
cially famous was Gallic pottery and glass,
large quantities of which have been found
at Pompeii and in Naples and Rome. The
names of hundreds of free workers are
known from autographs on sherds. The
principal industries were textiles and iron-
ware, for Gallic swords, armor, and metal
utensils were highly valued. Leather and
skin containers for oil were widely manu-
factured. One fact is of the utmost impor-
tance: the merchants and shipowners who
carried this commerce were of Gallo-Roman
birth. The merchants of Narbonne 6 had a
schola at Ostia as did those of Aries. An
inscription in Narbonne tells us that a na-
tive merchant of that city who traded in
Sicily was an honorary magistrate of all

6 Narbonne, in southern France, in the Middle
Ages had a port on the Mediterranean. [Editor's
note]

the important Sicilian ports. Another in-
scription found in Beirut, dated 201, con-
tains a letter of the prefect to representa-
tives of the five corporations of navicularii
of Aries. It should be especially noted that
all the commodities mentioned above have
one characteristic in common: they are
either bulky or heavy objects of low intrin-
sic value which depend of necessity for
profitable export on cheap transportation
and relative freedom from onerous tariffs.
The accession of Commodus in 180
marks the beginning of serious civil dis-
turbances in Gaul. Robber bands pillaged
the country. After his assassination in 192,
the struggle between Clodius and Septimus
Severus was settled in the battle of Lyon,
in the course of which the city was sacked
and burned. Political disorder in this and
ensuing periods was always an invitation
for the barbarians to cross the frontier.
They now came in bands, inflicting damage
everywhere, Alexander Severus restored
some semblance of order and initiated a
policy of settling the new arrivals in mili-
tary colonies on the frontier, but assassina-
tion stayed his hand and the infamous
Maximin, who dominated the scene after
235, systematically confiscated all property
within his grasp. He reduced the most
illustrious families to poverty, seized the
property of the different societies and chari-
table foundations, and stripped the temples
of their valuables. A treasure hoard uncov-
ered in 1909 in Cologne, of 100 gold aurei
and 20,000 silver pieces, dating from Nero
to 236, testifies to the unhappy fate of the
owner, who preserved his goods but doubt-
less lost his life. Maximin shortly was slain,
but civil war continued from 238 to 261,
with new invasions of Franks and Alemans
in 253-257. In 267 the German soldiery
murdered the emperor, who had forbidden
them the sacking of Mainz. When Aurelian
died in 275 more barbarians entered Gaul,
to be checked until Probus died in 282,
when Alemans and Burgundians ravaged
the country and pirates harried the coasts.
At the same time the terrible Bagaudes,

94

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

robber bands of peasants, wreaked havoc
wherever they went. It is highly significant
that in the debris scattered about Roman
ruins in France today are to be found coins
and scattered inscriptions dating about, but
rarely after, the second half of the third
century, thus fixing the date of the greatest
damage. Adrian Blanchet, in a study of
871 coin hoards uncovered in Gaul 'and
northern Italy, by tabulating the results in
chronological and geographical form has
concluded that there is a remarkable cor-
respondence between the places and pe-
riods of disorder and invasion, and the loca-
tion, numbers, and size of the hoards.

When order was restored in the fourth
century, the cities had been reduced to a
size which could be easily fortified and de-
fended, and they became important rather
as military centers with a population of offi-
cials, soldiers, clerics, and a few merchants,
than as the once thriving, proud, free cities
of happier eras. An attempt was made at
reconstruction, as in the case of Autun, rav-
aged in 269 and restored in the years after
296. Testifying to the lack of skilled labor
was the importation of masons from Britain
to assist in the rebuilding. Yet when Con-
stantine visited Autun in 311 it was still
poor and sparsely settled, while the citizens
who survived complained of the crushing
taxation.

Renewed civil war followed the death of
Constantine in 337, culminating in the
Prankish invasion of 355. Julian's cam-
paigns brought peace and a revitalized life,
but the year following his death, 363, the
Alemans again invaded the country and in
368 sacked Mainz. After 395 Gaul" was vir-
tually abandoned by the Empire.

In addition to these civil disturbances,
the depreciation of the Roman coinage in
the third century was a powerful factor in
leading to the institution of the colonnate
and compulsory services of the fourth cen-
tury with attendant hardships on the poor
and middle classes. The severity of their
circumstances urged them to seek relief
through the relationship of the precarium
and patrocinium, producing as the result

the dominating class of the great landhold-
ers of the senatorial aristocracy and a gen-
eral weakening of all imperial authority.

One would imagine that the final prod-
uct of these disturbances and regulations
would be the serious, if not catastrophic de-
terioration of the once flourishing economic
activity of the country, and our information
leads us to believe that such was the case.
Some cloth was still made at Treves, Metz,
and Reims; but, if we except the beautiful
jewelry of the Merovingian age, the glass
industry alone may be said to have flour-
ished, although the pieces that have sur-
vived are poor in quality and design and
characterized by imperfect purification of
the glass. Technical skill in masonry was
limited, and the crudity of lettering on in-
scriptions bears witness to a decline of
craftsmanship. During the earlier period of
the empire, there were frequent references
to Gallic sailors, as we have shown, but in
the fourth century we hear only of African,
Spanish, Syrian, and Egyptian sailors, and
it is, of course, well known that Syrians
and Orientals henceforth play an increas-
ingly dominant role in trade and commerce.
It would be a serious mistake to exaggerate
this decline. Aries was still a busy port for
the entrance of Eastern commodities, as an
edict of Honorius of 418 testifies, and some
possessors of large estates were extremely
wealthy not only in land, but in large sums
of gold; however, the accumulative testi-
mony of writers, archaeology, and legisla-
tion indicates a far smaller scale of activity
in industry and commerce then two cen-
turies earlier.

Consequently, if after the Gothic inva-
sions of North Italy, Southern Gaul, and
Spain, and the Vandal conquest of North
Africa and pirate raids in the western Medi-
terranean in the fifth century, we wish to
speak of commerce as a determining factor
in Merovingian Gaul, we would have to
show that the reigns of Clovis and his suc-
cessors produced a considerable economic
revival, rather than that they maintained
purely the status quo. This is, of course,
one of the major parts of Pirenne's thesis:

Pirenne and Muhammad

95

that there was an important identity in all
the significant aspects of life, government,
and culture between East and West, a true
unity which effected a real survival in-
deed revival of prosperity until the Mus-
lim conquest. Consequently, a comparison
of West and East is necessary, and if possi-
ble an attempt should be made to show
whether Merovingian government acted to
encourage or discourage commerce.

The government of Merovingian Gaul
was a monarchy, absolute in all respects,
and if one may judge from the conduct of
its rulers as revealed in the history of
Gregory of Tours, the monarch had a very
imperfect grasp of the "antique" notion of
the state as an instrument designed to pro-
mote the common welfare. True, Clovis
and his successors preserved many of the
features of the Roman administrative sys-
temparticularly the method of deriving
revenue, but there was certainly not the
slightest reason for altering the machinery
of an institution designed to raise the maxi-
mum of taxes when the principal aim of
the ruler was to acquire as much wealth as
possible. But even the operation of this
part of the government became increasingly
inefficient, particularly in the collection of
the taxes on land, for the registers were in
the greatest disorder and rarely revised, and
the powerful did not pay at all. Thus, it
came about that the easiest imposts to col-
lect were the indirect tolls on commerce,
for officers could be stationed on bridges, at
cross roads, in the ports, and along the
principal waterways to waylay all who
passed. All the old levies of the later em-
pire remained or were multiplied, . . . The
internal free trade of a bygone era was a
thing of the past, and it should be obvious
that while such tariffs could be borne by
goods of high intrinsic value and small
bulk, or by goods going short distances,
they would certainly put an intolerable
burden on those products which once con-
stituted the basis of Gaul's prosperity.

True, Latin was still the language of

administration, but after the death of Jus-
tinian, Greek replaced Latin in the East.

Let us compare the position of King and
Emperor. The sovereign of the East was
the chief of a hierarchy of subordinate mag-
istrates. He was not above the law, but
held himself bound to conform to the ac-
cumulated tradition of Roman law and to
his own edicts. As ruler, his main preoccu-
pation was the preservation of his empire
and its administrative machinery from at-
tacks without and within the state, but he
did not hesitate to introduce innovations
when circumstances warranted a change.
He maintained a standing army and fleet
commanded by professional officers whose
sworn duty it was to keep the empire secure
from all threats. To accomplish all these
ends the empire was organized into an ad-
ministrative bureaucracy, carefully regu j
lated, of extraordinary complexity and
detail.

The King of Gaul, on the contrary,
thought of himself rather less as a magis-
trate and rather more as a proprietor. The
imperial office in the East was in theory
elective, but the King in the West divided
his kingdom after his death by rules of in-
heritance among his several sons without,
as Lot has observed, any regard for geogra-
phy, ethnography, or the desires of the
people. Before 476 the unity of East and
West, despite the presence of two emper-
ors, was not only theory but fact, for both
emperors issued laws under their joint
names, and a general law promulgated by
one emperor and transmitted to the other
for publication was universally valid, but
the division of Gaul among the King's sons
shattered all legislative unity within the
separate kingdoms, and such unity was re-
stored only when and if a more powerful
son succeeded in overwhelming and mur-
dering his brothers. Furthermore, an edict
issued in Constantinople was neither valid
nor binding in Merovingian Gaul indeed,
was probably never heard of. In Gaul
the army cost little or nothing, for it was
neither professional nor standing, but was
recruited by compulsion and without pay

96

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

when the occasion or emergency warranted.
Because a third of the proceeds of judg-
ment went to the King, the courts were
regarded more as a source of profit than as
instruments of justice. In contrast to the
complex bureaucracy of the East, in Gaul
the King confided local administration to a
few officials who combined executive, finan-
cial, and judicial functions in their one
person, who commonly purchased their
office, and who commonly exercised it to
their own profit and the destruction and
despair of the inhabitants submitted to their
authority.

Pirenne is greatly impressed by the fact
that the barbarian states had three features
in common with the Empire: they were
absolutist, they were secular, and the in-
struments of government were the fisc and
the treasury. This seems to be a similarity
without significance or value. Most states
ruled by one man are absolutist, secular,
and dependent on the treasury yet that
does not prove a derived and intentional
identity with Byzantium. The personal role
cf Charles I before the summoning of the
Long Parliament was absolutist; like the
Byzantine Emperor, Charles was the head
of the church, and his power was exclu-
sively dependent on the treasury, but surely
no one would dream of maintaining that
there was a valid identity between Stuart
England and the Eastern Roman Empire.
What earthly reason would Clovis and his
successors have had for setting up any other
kind of state?

But, still more important, is this supposed
identity, even if insignificant, really true?
We have already indicated that the absolut-
ism of the Emperor was different in some
respects from that of the King. Were both
governments secular in the same sense and
spirit? Pirenne defines a secular govern-
ment as one conducted without the aid or
intervention of the church and its officials,
and one in which the King was a pure lay-
man whose power did not depend upon any
religious ceremony, although the King
might nominate bishops and other clergy
and even summon synods.

It is, of course, true that the Byzantine
Emperor was a layman in the sense that his
power did not depend upon any religious
ceremony. Ever since Leo I was crowned in
457 by the Patriarch, that ecclesiastic usu-
ally performed the act of coronation, yet,
he did so as an important individual not
as a representative of the church so that
his presence was not legally indispensable.

The church, however, was most certainly
subject to the state, in a manner utterly
unlike that in Gaul, and the union of
church and state which became always
closer as time went on profoundly affected
the character of both. It will be recalled
that Constantine had established the prin-
ciple that it was the emperor's duty and
right to summon and preside over general
councils of the church, and the later em-
perors considered themselves competent
even to legislate in all religious questions.
Justinian, who was a complete Erastian,
did so. He issued edicts regulating the
election of bishops, the ordination of priests,
the appointment of abbots, and the man-
agement of church property, nor did he
hesitate to pronounce and define his own
views, on matters of faith. , . .

If the Emperor, then, played a major role
in church affairs, it is also true that the
bishops assumed an increasing importance
in the civil administration of cities, and
Justinian added to their civil functions.
They had the right of acting as judges in
civil suits when both parties agreed to sub-
mit to their arbitration, and judgment once
given was not subject to appeal. In munici-
palities they had the duty of protecting the
poor against the tyranny either of the agents
of the Emperor or the nobles, and they
could appeal directly over the heads of the
administrative hierarchy to the Emperor
himself. Throughout the territory of the
exarchate of Ravenna, the bishops were
general supervisors of the baths, granaries,
aqueducts, and municipal finance. They
protected the poor, prisoners, and slaves.
They nominated to the Emperor the candi-
dates for provincial magistracies and as-
sisted at the installation of new governors.

Pirenne and Muhammad

97

They examined for traces of illegality the
acts of civil officials. They received notice
before publication of all new laws. In short,
they had the recognized power of continual
intervention in all matters of secular policy.

Whereas the King of the Franks inter-
fered in the appointment of church officers,
he did not pretend to settle larger matters
which were reserved for the authority of
the Pope, and whereas the Pope's compe-
tence was acknowledged in the West, and
his claim to be the chief of all bishops was
admitted in the East, we have already seen
that his authority was frequently chal-
lenged and defied by the Emperor, so that
a closer examination reveals that far from
the Pope and Emperor being mutually in-
dispensable, as Pirenne asserts, the Pope
recognized the Emperor's intervention and
definition of doctrine only when the tem-
poral authority of the Exarchs was sufficient
to compel obedience, or an alliance and co-
operation with the Emperor were essential
for an immediate papal aim, so that as a
general thing it would be more correct to
say that from the time of Gregory the
Great, the Popes submitted when they
must, but asserted their independence
when they could. Thus, by Pirenne's own
definition of secular, it will be seen that
there was a very great difference between
the state of the Franks and that of the
Emperor.

No problem is more important than this:
why did the Romans preserve the Empire
in the East and lose it to the barbarians in
the West? Various answers have been
given: the impregnable situation of Con-
stantinople and the more strongly fortified
towns of the East, the more favorable geo-
graphical factors, the occupation of the
throne by men of real ability in times of
crisis, and the purely fortuitous turn of
events at many times. Of the many factors
one should not underestimate two: the
character of the emperors and of the citizen
population in the East. Both ruler and
ruled composed a society which through
the traditions of centuries had become ac-
customed to the idea of the State as an

instrument for the very preservation and
well-being of society, and to this concept
of living under law administered by the
officials of government both ruler and ruled
paid homage and acknowledged the obli-
gation. Thus there was a community of
thought for self-preservation. Unfortu-
nately in the West the same sentiments
had not been a sufficient bulwark to keep
out the invaders, and the newcomers to
power, however much of the paraphernalia
of the previous government they may have
taken over, certainly failed to absorb, or
absorbed but imperfectly, the old notions
of the nature of the state and the value of
its traditions. The principal fact of the
Merovingian period was the decomposition
of public power. The refinements of state-
craft were an unappreciated art to the
wielders of a purely personal power, and
this blindness to realities led the kings to
take those measures which resulted in the
sapping of their own authority. The grant-
ing of immunities has long been recognized
as a short-sighted act, productive of decay
of royal absolutions. Inasmuch as we have
already demonstrated that the Arabs did
not cut off the trade routes at a time when
the effects of their acts could have resulted
in the granting of immunities due to weak-
ening of power by the loss of revenue,
Pirenne's interpretation of the proper se-
quence of cause and effect may be rejected.
Indeed, we first learn of the granting of
immunities in the sixth century, and after
623 the instances become increasingly nu-
merous; the practice was well established
long before anyone knew who Muhammad
was, and Fustel de Coulanges has well re-
marked, "Immunity does not date from the
decadence of the Merovingian; it is almost
as ancient as the Prankish monarchy itself." 7
In a wild and bloody period where one
Merovingian fought another, the reckless
expenditure of money, the destruction of
property, the escape of the nobility from
taxation, the conciliation of partisans by

7 Fustel de Coulanges, Les Origines du Systeme
Feodal (Paris, 1907), 345. [Dennett's note]

98

DANIEL C, DENNETT, JR.

lavish gifts, these, and similar factors
weakened the royal authority.

Pirenne asserts that "the foreign policy
of the Empire embraced all peoples of
Europe, and completely dominated the
policy of the Germanic State." The fact
that on certain occasions embassies were
sent to Constantinople or that the Emperor
at one time hired the Franks to attack the
Lombards is the chief basis of this assertion.
Clovis may have been honored by the title
of "consul," but would anyone maintain
that he considered himself answerable to
the will of the Emperor? Insofar as for
much of the time the conduct of the kings
either in their domestic or foreign affairs
can hardly be honored by the term "policy/ 7
it would be probably true to say that the
Emperor was the only one to have a foreign
policy.

Again, Pirenne makes a great point of
the fact that the Merovingians for a long
time employed the image of the Emperor
on their coins. So did the Arabs, until
Abdul Malik's reform, and for the same
reason.

In fact, in matters of law, of policy do-
mestic and foreign, of language, of culture,
of statecraft and political vision, the king-
dom of the Franks and the empire of the
Greeks were as independent of one another
as two different sovereign states can be, and
if one is reduced to speaking of the mystical
"unity of Romania" as a dominant histori-
cal fact, one has reduced history itself to
mysticism.

Now to return again, after this digres-
sion, to the problem of commerce in Mero-
vingian Gaul. It must be clear that there is
nothing which one can indicate as calcu-
lated to improve the economic prosperity
of the country. Furthermore, three charac-
teristics dominate the picture:

1. People of Oriental origin appear to
play the chief role in commerce.

2. These Syrians are dealing in luxury
goods of eastern origin: spices, papyrus,
wines.

3. We have practically no mention at all
of exports from Gaul to the East.

Is there any connection between these
three facts and the internal political and
social condition of the country?

First: There is a physical factor in trans-
portation too often ignored. Goods of high
value and small compass may be trans-
ported long distances, in face of hardship
and peril, and still be sold for a profit. This
circumstance alone accounts for the sur-
vival and prosperity of the land route of five
thousand miles across Central Asia, since
tightly baled silk carried by camel and other
pack animals was valuable enough to offset
the cost of transportation. For the same
reason, spices \vhich had already passed
through the hands of at least three or four
middlemen before reaching a Mediter-
ranean port could be taken to Gaul, either
by sea or by land, and yield a satisfactory
return to those who made the effort. What
was true of spices was also true of papyrus
and of silk from Byzantium. A merchant
with capital enough to purchase a few hun-
dred pounds of pepper, or of cinnamon, or
of silk even though he had to make wide
detours, cover difficult terrain, take consid-
erable risks, and pay innumerable tolls
might still expect to make a profit.

But we have already had occasion to
point out that during the flourishing years
of the late Republic and early Empire, the
commercial prosperity of Gaul was founded
principally upon the export of the natural
products of the country: food stuffs,
cheaper textiles, timber, pottery, glass, skin
bags, and so forth. These commodities
could either be produced in the other parts
of the empire, or could be dispensed with
altogether. To compete favorably in the
imperial marts their export depended on
secure and relatively cheap transportation
and the absence of oppressive tolls and re-
strictive legislation. Therefore, when we
consider the destruction wrought by the
barbarian invasions, the civil turmoil, the
depreciation of the coinage, and the im-
poverishment of the empire in the third
century, we should expect the foreign mar-
kets for Gallic products would be tempo-
rarily lost, and it would appear reasonable

Pirenne and Muhammad

99

to conclude that the rigid economic and
social legislation of the emperors after Dio-
cletian's restoration, the collection of taxes
in kind, the multiplication of indirect tolls
and tariffs, compulsory services, the fiscal
policy of the Prankish kings, and the ab-
sence of any policy to promote commerce
and economic enterprise, would have made
it virtually impossible, even if the desire
had existed, to recover and reestablish lost
or disorganized markets.

These assumptions have, in fact, com-
monly been held by most economic histori-
ans of the period, and no one has ever
produced sufficient evidence seriously to
threaten their validity. They are, of course,
very inconvenient for Pirenne's thesis. He
consequently challenges them, but unfortu-
nately has been unable to find more than
one direct piece of evidence: that Gregory
the Great purchased some woollen cloth in
Marseilles and had some timber sent to
Alexandria. He also is "rather inclined" to
believe that the Germanic invasions revived
the prosperity of the slave trade.

VI

Since this evidence is scarcely convinc-
ing, and since it would be difficult to find
more, Pirenne turns to the problem of
money and says, "In any case, the abun-
dant circulation of gold compels us to con-
clude that there was a very considerable
export trade." Now, in the absence of any
banking system for settling by the shipment
of bullion an accumulated disparity be-
tween exports and imports, one would cer-
tainly be prepared to believe it quite possi-
ble that the export of some products would
bring foreign gold into the country, al-
though the total supply might be diminish-
ing due to larger imports, and this was un-
doubtedly the case, but Pirenne goes much
farther and makes it very plain that he be-
lieves the exports from Gaul in early Mero-
vingian days exceeded in value, or at least
equalled, the imports of eastern products,
since "if it [gold] had been gradually
drained away by foreign trade we should
find that it diminished as time went on.

But we do not find anything of the sort."
He argues that when the Muslim conquest
closed the trade routes, gold became a rarity
and was abandoned for silver as a medium
of exchange. The employment of silver was
the real beginning of the Middle Ages and
is a witness of a reversion to natural econ-
omy. When gold reappeared, the Middle
Ages were over, and "Gold resumed its
place in the monetary system only when
spices resumed theirs in the normal diet."

A natural question arises. If gold re-
mained the medium of currency, unim-
paired in quantity due to a favorable export
balance until the Arabs cut the trade routes,
what happened to it then? It could not
have flowed East after the catastrophe on
the assumption that exports suffered before
imports, because Pirenne is insistent, and
all the evidence he has collected is designed
to show that it was the import of Eastern
products which first disappeared. If gold
could, not flow East, why did it not remain
in Gaul as a medium of local exchange?

There are at least three factors in the
problem.

1. From the earliest times small quanti-
ties of gold were found in the beds of cer-
tain streams flowing from the Pyrenees, and
even in the sands of the Rhine, but the
supply was so negligible that one may assert
that the West produced no gold. On the
other hand, there were substantial deposits
of silver, and there were silver mines at
Melle in Poitou and in the Harz mountains.

2. It should be unnecessary to point out
that we have not the slightest idea of the
total amount of gold in Gaul at any period.
We occasionally hear of an amount con-
fiscated by a king, of a loan given by a
bishop, of a sum bequeathed the church
by a landholder or merchant, of the size of
booty or tribute, of a subsidy of 50,000
solidi sent by the Emperor, but that is all.
In many cases, without doubt, a figure or
instance is mentioned, not because it was
usual, but because it was extraordinary.
The number and importance of coin finds
are not in any proportion to the probable
facts and may not be relied on. Therefore

100

DANIEL C. DENNETT, JR.

when Pirenne speaks of 'large'' amounts of
gold, he is merely guessing. Furthermore,
as is well known, there was in general cir-
culation a bronze and silver currency for
use in smaller transactions.

3. Gregory the Great (590-604) testifies
that Gallic gold coins were so bad that they
did not circulate in Italy, and an examina-
tion of coins shows a progressive debase-
ment before the Arab conquest. Since these
coins did not come from the royal mint, but
were struck by roving minters for people
in more than a hundred known localities,
one has evidence of the chaotic decen-
tralization of the government and lack of
interest in orderly financial administration,
together with a possible indication of a
growing scarcity of gold.

If gold disappeared in Gaul, this dis-
appearance could be due to the following
causes :

a. It might have been hoarded, buried,
and lost.

b. It might have been exchanged or used
for the purchase of silver.

c. It might have been drained off in pur-
chase of commodities in a one sided trade,
or paid in tribute.

d. Through the operation of Gresham's
law, foreign merchants might have hoarded
and removed the good gold coinage, leaving
a debased coinage in local circulation.

There is no evidence to support the first
two hypotheses, and considerable evidence
for the last two both of which amount to
this same fact: gold was drained out of the
country. This hypothesis is strongly sup-
ported by the best known authority and
Bloch gives good reasons for accepting it.
Gold, of course, did not completely dis-
appear in the West, as the manufacture of
jewelry and occasional references show,
and it would be interesting to possess the
full facts about the gold coin counterfeiting
the Arab dinar the mancus. However, it
is difficult to accept the thesis advanced by
Dopsch that there was enough gold to con-
stitute with silver a truly bimetallic cur-
rency. But it is even more difficult to accept
the proposition of Pirenne that the change

from gold to silver meant a change from
money to natural economy. The numerous
instances which prove conclusively that
money continued as a medium of exchange
have been diligently collected by Dopsch
and need not be repeated. It is not clear
why silver coinage should equal natural
economy. China and Mexico use silver to-
day, and the coins of Arab mintage found
in the Baltic regions are also silver, yet no
one would pretend that in these instances
we are dealing with a system of natural
economy. Had a system of natural economy
prevailed we might have expected an ab-
sence of all kinds of money, and the fact
that the Carolingians introduced a pure,
standard, centrally minted silver coinage
would seem logically to prove just the con-
trary of Pirenne's thesis. But Pirenne takes
as a point the circumstance of the monas-
teries in those regions of Belgium where
the soil will not support vineyards. "The
fact that nearly all the monasteries in this
region where the cultivation of the vine is
impossible, made a point of obtaining
estates in the vine-growing countries,
either in the valleys of the Rhine and
Moselle or in that of the Seine, as gifts
from their benefactors, proves that they
were unable to obtain wine by ordinary
commercial means." 8 Pirenne has drawn
his information from an article of Hans
van Werveke. 9 The latter appears to have
been a collaborator of Pirenne's and asserts,
"The phenomenon which we signal is so
general that we can say that it responds to
an economic law." Now a superficial ob-
server, intent on discovering for himself the
likeliest place to observe the functioning
of a system of natural self-sufficing econ-
omy, might very reasonably turn to a mon-
astery as the logical place of all places, be-
cause of monastic rules themselves, to find

8 Pirenne, "The Place of the Netherlands in the
Economic History of Medieval Europe," Economic
History Review, H (1929), 23. [Dennett's note]

Hans van Werveke, "Comment les etablisse-
ments religieux beiges se procuraient-ils du vin
au haut moyen age/' Revue Eelge de Philologie et
d'Histoire, H (1923), 643-662. [Dennett's note]

Pirenne and Muhammad

101

such a system in operation. On the con-
trary, it is a well known fact that in the
Middle Ages a good many monasteries were
something more than self-sufficing and
turned to advantage surplus commodities
which they disposed of, or profited as toll
collectors, if rivers, bridge, or roads were
within their property. . . .

To conclude: There is no evidence to
prove that the Arabs either desired to close,
or actually did close the Mediterranean to
the commerce of the West either in the
seventh or eighth centuries. Islam was hos-
tile to Christianity as a rival, not as a com-
pletely alien faith, and the Muslims were
invariably more tolerant than the Chris-
tians, but Islam as a culture, as the com-
mon faith of those who submitted and who
spoke Arabic, though not necessarily by any
means of Arab blood, had far more in com-
mon with the Hellenized East and with
Byzantium than did the Gaul of Pirenne's
Romania. Much of what he says of Gaul
was true of Islam. The Merovingians took
over the administrative and particularly the
taxation system of Rome intact. So did the
Arabs. The Merovingians preserved Latin
as the language of administration. The
Arabs used Greek. Western art was influ-
enced by Byzantine forms. So was Arab.
But these are smaller matters. The crude
Western barbarians were not able to de-
velopindeed, they were too ignorant to

preserve the state and the culture they took
by conquest, while the Arabs on the con-
trary not only preserved what they took but
created from it a culture which the world
had not known for centuries, and which
was not to be equalled for centuries more.
This culture was based on that of the Hel-
lenized Eastern Mediterranean in one part
and on that of Persia strongly permeated
with both Hellenic and Indian elements,
on the other. Arab theology, Arab philoso-
phy, Arab science, Arab art none was
in opposition to late antique culture, as
Pirenne seems to imagine, but was a new,
fertile, virile, and logical development of
long established forms. The decadence of
the West the so-called Middle Ages
was due to a complexity of causes, mostly
internal, and largely connected with social
and political institutions. Rostovtzeff, writ-
ing of economic conditions of the later
Roman Empire, frequently warns against
mistaking an aspect for a cause, and most
of the economic factors of the Middle Ages
are aspects and not causes. Thus, the man
whether he be a Pirenne or a Dopsch
who attempts to understand and to inter-
pret either the Merovingian or Carolingian
period in terms purely of an economic inter-
pretation of history will be certain to fail,
for the simple reason that economic factors
play a subsidiary role and present merely
aspects in the great causative process.

THE FATE OF HENRI PIRENNE'S THESES

ON THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE

ISLAMIC EXPANSION

ANNE R1IS1NG

Anne Rilsing's article in a Danish journal is a generally successful
attempt to summarize the controversy which has developed over the
years. She states briefly the essentials of the Pirenne Thesis and then
proceeds to an analysis of the evidence and a summary of the views of
various historians with respect to that evidence. If is a very compre-
hensive treatment. The extracts below provide her own statement of the
problem and her own conclusions concerning the status of the contro-
versy at the time she writes. There are some slight changes in the order
of her material to bring together on particular points her summary
questions and her summary conclusions. The student is warned that her
essential purpose is merely to bring together the results of research
over the years. He should not necessarily adopt her conclusions and
should note carefully her own statement, "the last word has certainly
not yet been said," and especially her appeal for clearer definitions and
for an entire revision of the formulation of the problem itself.

EVERY MEDIEVALIST is acquainted with
Henri Pirenne's theses on the con-
sequences of the Islamic expansion, put
forward in the years 1922-35. According
to these the Roman empire was neither de-
stroyed nor germanized by the Germanic
invasions, and "Romania" remained a cul-
tural and economic unity. The best proof
of this is to be found in the flourishing com-
merce of Gaul, to which Syrian merchants,
resident in the Occident, imported Oriental
spices, wines of Ghaza, oil, papyrus, and
luxury cloths. This commerce brought vast
quantities of gold to the country, and this
money was the foundation of political life,
in as much as the king's power was derived
from the income obtained by taxes on com-

merce. The secular classical civilization
likewise remained unchanged. But the
Islamic expansion crushed the Mediter-
ranean unity and heralded the middle ages.
From the middle of the 7th century two
hostile civilizations faced each other across
the Mediterranean, the sea was closed, and
at the beginning of the 8th century all
Oriental commerce had come to an end.
The urban life and the professional mer-
chants disappeared, gold yielded to silver,
money to natural economy, and the king's
power collapsed. The Carolingians took the
consequences, founded their power on the
land, and moved the economic, cultural,
and political centre towards the north. The
Carolingian kingdom was a purely conti-

From Anne Riising, "The Fate of Henri Pirenne's Theses on tne Consequence of the Islamic Expan-
sion, Classica et Mediaevalia, XIII O952), 87-130. Published by Librairie Gyldendal, Copenhagen,
1952, and used with their permission.

102

The Fate of the Henri Pirenne Theses

103

nental state, dominated by the Germanic
population, whose influence was strength-
ened by the active mission among heathen
Germanic peoples. The character of civili-
zation changed from secular to clerical, edu-
cation became an ecclesiastical monopoly,
and the easy quick cursive was replaced by
the calligraphic minuscule. Furthermore,
the Islamic expansion restricted the author-
ity of the pope to Western Europe, and
since Byzantium could no longer defend
Rome against the Lombards, the pope
called in the Franks. Thus it is correct to
say that without Mohammed, Charlemagne
would have been inconceivable.

The thesis is divided into two distinct
parts, one showing the continuation of the
classical tradition in the Merovingian age,
the other demonstrating the fundamental
Change of society in the Carolingian age.
It is, in fact, a new catastrophe theory,
giving a novel explanation of the beginning
of the middle ages and the making of Euro-
pean civilization. But as the entire thesis
is based on the influence of commerce, the
literary discussion has mainly concentrated
on the problem of the Oriental commerce,
and only a few important works have ap-
peared on the cultural development.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

To judge the importance of the Oriental
commerce and its fate after the Islamic ex-
pansion three essential problems must be
solved:

i. Is it true that Merovingian Gaul had
an Oriental commerce of such dimen-
sions as to be the foundation of society
and civilization?

n. How and when could the Arabs break
off Mediterranean trade, and why did
they want to do so?

in. Had the Carolingian age no foreign
commerce at all and in particular no
Oriental commerce?

Is it true that Merovingian Gaul had
an Oriental commerce of such dimensions

as to be the foundation of society and
civilization? . . .

To sum up. An extensive Oriental com-
merce and a general internal prosperity in
the Merovingian age has not been proved
and hardly rendered probable. The eco-
nomic and political development since the
3rd century, combined with the decline of
population, suggest a progressive deca-
dence, so that the burden of proof must rest
on those who think otherwise. Since no-
body has shouldered this burden yet, it is
reasonable to assume that the commerce
with the Orient was far too small to be the
determining factor in Gallic society, and
this means that a great part of Pirenne's
thesis has collapsed. ...

n

How and when could the Arabs break
off Mediterranean trade, and why did they
want to do so?

The first question to be asked is: Had
the Arabs power to cut off the commerce
at all? They might do so by stopping ex-
port from the Moslem countries and block-
ading the Mediterranean sea routes; or they
might shut out Western Europe by military
occupation of the Mediterranean coasts; or,
finally, the Saracen piracy, though hardly
an intended phenomenon, might paralyze
navigation. But in no possible way could
they cut off land intercourse between By-
zantium and Western Europe.

These different possibilities give differ-
ent answers to the next question, the fixing
of the date when the Mediterranean com-
merce could cease. If the Caliphate imme-
diately embarked on an economic policy
with this end in view, it might perhaps
have been partly accomplished by the end
of the 7th century, provided sufficient naval
strength was created. A military occupa-
tion could not be effective until the 8th
century, and the piracy was of no real im-
portance until the 9th century. But apart
from these aspects we must ask one funda-
mental question: Is it reasonable to assume
that the Arabs did intend to cut off Medi-
terranean commerce, and, if so, what was

104

ANNE RIISING

the reason"? If the answer is in the negative,
it must finally be investigated, if the mak-
ing of the Caliphate perhaps brought about
such profound changes of international
economic conditions that these by them-
selves led to the end of the commerce be-
tween the Orient and the Occident . . .

To sum up. There is no reason to sup-
pose that the Arabs intended to destroy the
Mediterranean commerce, or that they did
so either by blockade, military occupation,
or piracy. But this does not prove an exten-
sive commerce in the Carolingian kingdom.
Considering the earlier development, it was
to be expected that the commerce between
the Orient and Western Europe, steadily
decreasing because of the passive balance
of trade, would die a natural death in the
Carolingian age. A closer scrutiny of this
is necessary.

ni

Had the Carolingian age no foreign
commerce at all and in particular no Orien-
tal commerce: 5

It is hardly probable that political or
religious contrasts may have caused the
Christian Occident to refuse economic re-
lations with the Moslems. Nor could the
ecclesiastical disapproval of luxury and
scant appreciation of commerce as a whole
seriously impede the commercial activity,
and though some Oriental products might
be replaced by European ones, e.g. papyrus
by parchment and oil by fat and butter,
the demand for spices and luxury cloths
never ceased.

But to judge the extent of the commerce
between the Orient and the Christian Occi-
dent a number of questions must be an-
swered: Is it true that the Carolingian age
did not know Oriental products? Did the
Syrian merchants disappear without being
replaced by others? Were sea and land
routes to the Orient cut off? Was the Caro-
lingian kingdom on the whole character-
ized by a closed economy without money,
especially without gold or other means of
paying an import from the Orient? . . .

To sum up. Since the later Roman em-
pire the Occident was in a state of progres-

sive economic decadence, and its Oriental
commerce decreased steadily, because the
passive balance of trade drained the gold
reserves. The Islamic expansion did not
bring ruin, for the Arabs neither wanted to
nor could destroy the commerce. On the
contrary, the immense prosperity within
the Caliphate created a demand for Occi-
dental commodities, and by a surplus of
exports Western Europe acquired Arabian
gold and silver. This enabled the Occident
to resume the import from Byzantium,
which incidentally contributed to the eco-
nomic revival of this empire.

But the shape of the international com-
merce of the Carolingian age was certainly
very different from that of the Merovingian
age. France itself had hardly any direct
communication with the Levant, but traded
through Moslem Spain and Byzantine Italy
and had an indirect contact via the Baltic
and Russia and through Central Europe.
The whole of Europe had been involved in
the international commerce, which for the
first time in history had taken shape of a
true interchange. However, the real cen-
tre of the Oriental commerce in the Occi-
dent was no doubt Italy, while France was
of secondary importance, but that was only
natural. After all, the Carolingian kingdom
was mainly a continental state, and the in-
ternal trade and even more the Northern
Frisian commerce were no doubt of far
greater importance than the Oriental com-
merce. Though this may have been more
extensive than in the Merovingian age, its
relative importance was certainly much
smaller, and it must not be forgotten that
both internal and foreign commerce were
far less important than agriculture. Italy,
on the other hand, was naturally turned
towards the Mediterranean, and the Byzan-
tine provinces were particularly suited to
deal in Byzantine commodities. The Italian
commerce with Oriental countries was
probably of larger dimensions and certainly
of far greater relative importance than the
French, and it was natural that the Italians,
rather than anyone else, should seize on
the Oriental commerce.

The Fate of the Henri Pirenne Theses

105

CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Many historians have ventured to judge
what may have been the influence of the
Islamic expansion on the cultural develop-
ment of Western Europe, but most of them
confine themselves to some general consid-
erations, and very few primary studies have
appeared. The entire discussion turns on
two central questions:

i. Was the Mediterranean sphere a true
cultural unity until the beginning of the
7th century, and was this unity destroyed
by Islam?

ii. Was the civilization of the Carolin-
gian age fundamentally different from that
of the Merovingian age? . . .

To sum up. In fact very little light has
been shed on the immediate effect of the
Islamic expansion on the cultural develop-
ment of Western Europe, and it is unfortu-
nately unlikely that certain results will ever
be established, since after all it remains a
matter of subjective judgment whether one
will speak of a cultural unity or not. From
the later Roman Empire a growing differ-
ence between the Eastern and the Western
Mediterranean indubitably existed, but at
the same time they had .still much in com-
mon compared to that which was outside
the orbis romanus. But the Islamic expan-
sion caused no rupture; certainly nobody
can deny that from the long view it limited
European civilization to Europe proper, but
the islamization was a slow process. The
Arabs were a small minority in proportion
to the conquered peoples; in the Eastern
countries they assumed the Hellenistic-
Oriental civilization, and in the Western
they entered into the Latin heritage,
though this proved of much smaller
importance.

Nor did Islam break the evolution of
Western Europe, and a continuity between
the Merovingian and the Carolingian age
can hardly be refuted. But evidently the
Carolingian age witnessed the outbreak of
the east-western antagonism, expressed by
the detachment of the papacy and the re-
construction of the western empire. But if
the rupture did come in the 8th century,

the reason was probably that the weaken-
ing of the Greek empire and the reorgani-
zation of the Prankish kingdom had created
the necessary actual basis for the new papal
policy. Furthermore, the Carolingian con-
quests included new regions that had had
no part in the classical civilization, and,
what is more important, the Irish-Anglo
Saxon civilization, based on a distinctly
Latin tradition, came to dominate the cul-
tural life; this counteracted the Oriental
influence and deepened the contrast to the
Eastern countries, which in the same period
were acquiring a still more markedly Orien-
tal character. The Oriental influence in
Italy was certainly strengthened by the
immigrations, but the immigrants sided
with the papal policy, and that is even truer
of the iconodulic refugees in the 8th
century.

Thus the most essential influence of the
Islamic expansion on the cultural develop-
ment of the Occident is probably to be
found in the fact that the weakening of
Byzantium forced this empire to withdraw
and leave the Occident peace to pursue its
own independent development.

SUMMARY

Research until now had definitely tended
towards refuting Pirenne's theses, but the
last word has certainly not yet been said.
It is, of course, the lack of sources that has
made possible so many different views, and
though it is preferable to let the sources
speak for themselves, they cannot do so.
One may quote authorities in support of
any theory, and the final judgment of the
economic development must consequently
depend on a general estimation of the effect
which the joint historical course of events
may be assumed to have had on the eco-
nomic conditions. Regarding the conse-
quences of the Islamic expansion specially,
the judgment of this problem must, in the
end, rest on more or less vague speculations
on what would have happened if the Cali-
phate had not come into existence.

But of course primary examinations of a
great many subjects are still needed. Writ-

106

ANNE RIISING

ten and archaeological sources may no
doubt yield much more information of the
kind collected by Sabbe, 1 and the numis-
matical material is far from exhausted, nor
is the true role of money satisfactorily ex-
plained. The cultural development has
been the step-child of the discussion, and
this field offers vast opportunities for re-
search. It might prove important to ascer-
tain if new trends of art, literature, or phi-
losophy spread quickly from one region to
another, and it would be valuable to ex-
amine \vhat knowledge of Oriental affairs
is displayed by European authorities, as
Baynes and lorga have done in some cases.
This must then be supplemented by similar
examinations of Oriental sources, for it
must not be forgotten that an economic and
cultural intercourse has always two sides;
the Oriental side has definitely been grossly
neglected, and many historians entirely
lack knowledge of Oriental conditions. For
this we must turn to specialists in Islamic
and Byzantine history, and very likely they
will get the last word.

But more than anything else a revision
of the very formulation of the problems is
needed. Much vagueness and many possi-
bilities of conflict have been caused by the
lack of clear definitions. This is true of the
cultural history, since nobody takes the
trouble to define precisely what they mean
by a cultural unity, and within economic
history many speak in vague general terms
about natural and money economy without
defining these conceptions. The greatest de-
ficiency is, however, the lack of definitions
of the Orient and the Occident. Most par-
ticipants in the discussion seem to localize
the Orient in the Levant proper and the
Southern Balkans, while the Occident is
identified with Italy and the Prankish king-
dom. But though this may seem obvious, it
is in fact a fatal bias, evoked by modern
geographical notions. For the later Roman
empire it should be natural to define the

1 E. Sabbe, a Belgian historian, has brought to
light considerable evidence of trade between East
and West in the Carolingian period. [Editor's
note]

Orient and the Occident as respectively the
Eastern and the Western empire. But
through Justinian's conquests the Orient
took large parts of the Occident into pos-
session, not only politically, but to a certain
degree also culturally and economically.
This means that the cultural, particularly
the religious contrast before the 7th cen-
tury, was not a contrast between the Orient
and the Occident, but between two parties
within the Orient. Greece had a consider-
able orthodox party, and the pope still re-
garded the Byzantine emperor as the true
secular head of the world and dated all
letters by the imperial years of reign until
787. Furthermore, most of the Balkans was
subject to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of
Rome.

The Islamic expansion incorporated
Africa and Spain into the Moslem Orient,
and the Balkans and Sicily came under the
Constantinopolitan patriarch during the
iconoclastic conflict, while at the same time
Byzantine Italy was truly hellenized. This
development confined the Occident to the
domain of the Roman church, and West-
ern unity was further emphasized by Char-
lemagne's conquests, which brought all
Roman Catholic countries, except the Brit-
ish Isles, together under one ruler. Thus in
the age of Charlemagne the Occident stood
out as a definite conception in contrast to
the Orient, but at the same time it enjoyed
an intimate contact with both the Moslem
and the Byzantine Orient via respectively
Spain and Italy, for wheresoever Allah was
worshipped, or the Greek emperor obeyed,
the Orient was present. Such a conception
in the highest degree simplifies the prob-
lem of the economic and cultural relations
between the Orient and the Occident, since
the western parts of the Islamic and Byzan-
tine Orient were never without connexion
with the eastern parts. ^ v

Nothing is better proof of Pirenne's bril- s
liant eloquence than the fact that he has
been able to impose his own formulation
of the problems upon even his opponents,
but by now the time should be ripe for jan
unbiased revision.

SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING

An attempt to draft a list of supplemen-
tary references on the "Pirenne Thesis" en-
counters two fundamental difficulties. In
the first place, so wide are the ramifications
and so broad are the implications of Pi-
renne's ideas that a bibliography might well
embrace the entire history of the Middle
Ages. In the second place, the issues are of
primary concern to European historians,
more especially French, German, and
Belgian, and most of their contributions
(whether in book form or in articles) are
not available in English translation and
indeed may be consulted only in a few
American libraries. A list of references for
undergraduate use in the United States
must, therefore, be necessarily arbitrary.

The purpose of the suggestions which
follow is two-fold: (1) to suggest some
introductory material which may be help-
ful to the beginning student and to provide
him with a larger context for the analysis
of this problem; (2) to indicate to the stu-
dent where he will find further elaboration
of the issues raised by Pirenne and more
extensive criticism than is found in the
selections provided in this booklet.

For the student, just beginning to find
his way in the period, the problem can best
be studied initially in conjunction with
some standard survey of the early Middle
Ages. If this survey is conventional in
nature and moderate in interpretation, so
much the better, for then the impact of
Pirenne will be all the greater. There are
many such surveys available in excellent
texts. A very serviceable introduction in
even briefer compass is found in Joseph R.
Strayer, Western Europe in the Middle
Ages: A Short History (New York, 1955).

The larger the context the student can
provide for himself, the better. It would
be well for him to become thoroughly
acquainted with the political story of the
barbarian invasions and the formation of
Germanic kingdoms in the West. Analyses

which are fairly comprehensive and yet
within manageable compass are found in
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian
West, 400-1000 (London, 1952) and in
H. St. L. B. Moss, The Birth of the Middle
Ages, 395-814 (London, 1935). An ambi-
tious student will be rewarded by consult-
ing the mass of information in the early
volumes of the Cambridge Medieval His-
tory. Ferdinand Lot, much influenced by
Pirenne, was the author of a brilliant treat-
ment of the transition from the Roman Em-
pire to Germanic kingdoms in his The End
of the Ancient World and the Beginnings
of the Middle Ages (New York, 1931).

The difficult problem of the relation of
the Merovingian period to the Carolingian
era may be pursued in several distinguished
works. One of the most important of recent
years is that of E. Salin, La Civilisation
merovingienne d'apres les sepultures, les
textes et le laboratoire (2 vols., Paris, 1950-
1953). Salin, a French mining engineer
turned archaeologist, has framed novel
and significant theories concerning the
Merovingian period. His first volume is a
general treatment of the German invasions;
the second is an analysis of grave findings.
Easily the best work on the Carolingian era
is Louis Halphen, Charlemagne et I' empire
carolingien (Paris, 1947). The leading
Austrian medievalist of the twentieth cen-
tury has been the late Alfons Dopsch. He
held to the notion of unbroken cultural and
economic continuity from the later Roman
Empire through the Merovingian period
into the Carolingian era. His views have
been accepted only in part and should be
studied with caution; they may be followed
in his The Economic and Social Founda-
tions of European Civilization (condensed
and translated from the second German
edition; New York, 1937). Arthur Jean
Kleinclausz, Charlemagne (Paris, 1934) is
the best book in any language on its sub-
ject, but a very readable and dependable

107

108

Suggestions for Additional Reading

biography is available in Richard Winston's
Charlemagne, from the Hammer to the
Cross (New York, 1955).

Byzantine studies are now enjoying a
renaissance and provide another vantage
point from which to assess the ideas of
Pirenne. A good introduction is offered
in J. M. Hussey, The Byzantine World
(London, 1957). A standard work is A. A.
Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire
(2 vols., Madison, Wis., 1928-1929).
Vasiliev was a Russian scholar who came
to the United States in 1925 and was long
associated with the University of Wiscon-
sin and with the Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library. His book was also published in
Russian, French, Spanish, and Turkish.
Less detailed but somewhat more abreast
of latest scholarship is a work by the
Serbian scholar, Georg Ostrogorsky' His
History of the Byzantine State (Oxford,
1956) is a translation from the second
German edition of 1954, but incorporates
results of research even in the brief interim.
An interesting presentation of the issues of
Byzantine history is afforded by compara-
tive study of the views of a French histo-
rian, Ch. Diehl (1859-1944) and those
of a British scholar, Norman H. Baynes
(1877- ). A student seeking more gen-
eral treatment, particularly of cultural his-
tory, will do well to consult the essays by
specialists in various fields conveniently col-
lected by Norman H. Baynes and H. St. L.
B. Moss, in Byzantium: An Introduction to
East Roman Civilization (Oxford, 1948).
It is a valuable and fascinating book. A
useful treatment of the same material, but
more popular in tone, is provided in Steven
Runciman, Byzantine Civilisation (Lon-
don, 1933).

For Islam, the important contribution of
Philip K. Hitti, an Arab scholar at Prince-
ton since 1926, will provide ample mate-
rial. His The Arabs: A Short History
(Princeton, 1943) is a highly successful
compression of a much larger work, History
of the Arabs (5th edition, London, 1953).
Gustav E. von Grunebaum in Medieval
Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation

(2nd ed., Chicago, 1953) has much to say
concerning Moslem ideas and institutions
which is relevant to the controversy over
Pirenne.

The most elusive problems raised by
Pirenne are those which concern economic
development trade, industry, towns, and
cities. Until very recently, in these matters
the state of our knowledge made the early
medieval period indeed a "dark age." Con-
temporary sources on economic history are
far scantier than for political or for church
history. Only a few documents before 800
are found in a recent collection of materials
put together by Robert S. Lopez and Irving
W. Raymond (.Medieval Trade in the
Mediterranean World, New York, 1955).
But medieval economic history is now a
very active field; the works already cited by
Lot, Dopsch, Salin, and Halphen incorpo-
rate results of recent research. The most
useful summaries in English, as well as
extensive bibliographies, will be found in
vol. I-II of the Cambridge Economic His-
tory (Cambridge, 1941, 1952). But the
best book on economic development in the
early Middle Ages is now Robert Latouche,
Les Origines de I'economie occidentale
(Paris, 1956).

The serious student interested in trends
of current scholarship will soon become
aware of the rich resources in scholarly
periodicals concerned with the early Middle
Ages; the journal most readily available to
undergraduates will be Speculum: A Jour-
nal of Medieval Studies, published by the
Medieval Academy of America. At the
same time he will do well to become ac-
quainted with the contributions of histo-
rians of other days. In this connection,
Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire (Bury edi-
tion, 7 v., London, 1896-1900) is of course
a work apart and should still be read both
for its information and its interpretation.

For Henri Pirenne himself, the essentials
for the examination of his ideas and the
controversy they generated are found in the
selections of this book. Further amplifica-
tion and illustration can, however, readily

Suggestions for Additional Reading

109

be found. Professor Gray C. Boyce provides
some interesting biographical details, in-
cluding Pirenne's poignant experience dur-
ing the first World War, in his article, "The
Legacy of Henri Pirenne," Byzantion, vol.
XV (1940-1941), pp. 449-464. A full
reading of the Mohammed and Charle-
magne will provide fairly complete knowl-
edge of Pirenne's contribution. A compre-
hensive bibliography of Pirenne's writings
is found in Henri Laurent, "Les Travaux
de M. Henri Pirenne sur la fin du monde
antique et les debuts du moyen age,"
Byzantion, VII (1932), 495-509, and in
Anne Riising, "The Fate of Henri Pirenne's

Theses," Classica et Mediaevalia, XIII
(1952). The more important items, with
citations to reviews of Pirenne's books, are
found in Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., "Pirenne
and Muhammad," S'peculwn, XXIII
(April, 1948). A careful defense of Pi-
renne is provided in Pierre Lambrechts,
"Les Theses de Henri Pirenne sur la fin
du monde antique et les debuts du moyen
age," Byzantion, XIV (1939), 513-536.' A
recent analysis is that by Anne Riising (in
the article cited above); she cites and sum-
marizes the important commentary which
has accumulated over the years.

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